5 ms·

Very well deserved. I've looked over dozens of papers for relational db's and every single one of them cites down to his foundational work. Congratulations Pr

Very well deserved. I've looked over dozens of papers for relational db's and every single one of them cites down to his foundational work. Congratulations Professor Stonebraker!

AlisdairO 12y ago
Absolutely. The man is outstandingly influential.
greaterscope 12y ago
Seconded. He was on episode 199 of Software Engineering Radio two years ago (http://www.se-radio.net/2013/12/episode-199-michael-stonebraker/ http://www.se-radio.net/2013/12/episode-199-michael-stonebra...), which I thoroughly enjoyed. It was so informative that I took a page of notes while listening! Really great stuff.
timtadh 12y ago
Agreed. I remember being very inspired by some of his papers when I started studying databases in grad school. His work along with all of those who developed the B-Tree and its variants[1] is really foundational to data storage and retrieval. He also helped to kick off the "NoSQL" and "NewSQL" movements with his C-Store paper.[2] [1] Proposed by Bayer and McCreight, and independently developed by Chiat and Schwartz, and also by Cole, Radcliffe and Kaufman, improved by many including D. Knuth. [2] C-Store: A Column Oriented DBMS. Mike Stonebraker, Daniel Abadi, Adam Batkin, Xuedong Chen, Mitch Cherniack, Miguel Ferreira, Edmond Lau, Amerson Lin, Sam Madden, Elizabeth O'Neil, Pat O'Neil, Alex Rasin, Nga Tran and Stan Zdonik. VLDB, pages 553-564, 2005.
a3n 12y ago
And yet: > An adjunct professor of computer science and engineering at MIT Adjunct? Does this mean something different at MIT? Or is it some form of convenience for Stonebraker?
- peterfirefly 12y ago
  Most likely the latter. He was a full professor at Berkeley before that.
- Turing_Machine 12y ago
  He was a professor at Berkeley for 29 years. He's cashed out a number of successful businesses, so it's not likely that he needs money. He's in his 70s. I would guess he still likes to teach and do research, but maybe not as a full-time professor. Adjuncts don't have to go to committee meetings. :-)
  - dgacmu 12y ago
    Yup. In the case of people like Stonebraker -- or Butler Lampson, who's also officially adjunct at MIT -- Think of it as: You get an office, a community, resources with which to do research (and a framework within which to ask for grant/funding if you want), opportunities to advise students, the ability to teach classes when you want. In exchange, you don't get much money -- but also almost zero responsibilities unless you choose to assume them. (source: I'm a CS professor and I got my Ph.D. at MIT while both Stonebraker and Lampson were there.)
- dpritchett 12y ago
  This is what adjuncting is supposed to be for - folks with industry experience moonlight as professors. The benefit is not primarily salary but networking, knowledge sharing, and helping the next generation of industry professionals. Now it's more of a way to have 2/3 or more of the department work for unliveable wages which allows for an ever-growing administrative overhead in colleges while tuitions double every decade.
  - hga 12y ago
    As far as I know, not true at MIT, teaching is done by tenured or tenture track professors, with exceptions like this, or SF author Joe Haldeman, that prove the rule. But, yeah, I hear from lots of sources that adjuncts making peanuts have become the rule rather than the exception in general US academia, and there's no disputing how administrators are taking over higher education, now even desiring to wrest little the faculty still control from them.

Very well deserved. I've looked over dozens of papers for relational db's and every single one of them cites down to his foundational work. Congratulations Professor Stonebraker!

AlisdairO 12y ago

Absolutely. The man is outstandingly influential.

greaterscope 12y ago

Seconded. He was on episode 199 of Software Engineering Radio two years ago (http://www.se-radio.net/2013/12/episode-199-michael-stonebraker/ http://www.se-radio.net/2013/12/episode-199-michael-stonebra...), which I thoroughly enjoyed. It was so informative that I took a page of notes while listening! Really great stuff.

timtadh 12y ago

Agreed. I remember being very inspired by some of his papers when I started studying databases in grad school. His work along with all of those who developed the B-Tree and its variants[1] is really foundational to data storage and retrieval. He also helped to kick off the "NoSQL" and "NewSQL" movements with his C-Store paper.[2] [1] Proposed by Bayer and McCreight, and independently developed by Chiat and Schwartz, and also by Cole, Radcliffe and Kaufman, improved by many including D. Knuth. [2] C-Store: A Column Oriented DBMS. Mike Stonebraker, Daniel Abadi, Adam Batkin, Xuedong Chen, Mitch Cherniack, Miguel Ferreira, Edmond Lau, Amerson Lin, Sam Madden, Elizabeth O'Neil, Pat O'Neil, Alex Rasin, Nga Tran and Stan Zdonik. VLDB, pages 553-564, 2005.

a3n 12y ago

And yet: > An adjunct professor of computer science and engineering at MIT Adjunct? Does this mean something different at MIT? Or is it some form of convenience for Stonebraker?

peterfirefly 12y ago
Most likely the latter. He was a full professor at Berkeley before that.
Turing_Machine 12y ago
He was a professor at Berkeley for 29 years. He's cashed out a number of successful businesses, so it's not likely that he needs money. He's in his 70s. I would guess he still likes to teach and do research, but maybe not as a full-time professor. Adjuncts don't have to go to committee meetings. :-)
- dgacmu 12y ago
  Yup. In the case of people like Stonebraker -- or Butler Lampson, who's also officially adjunct at MIT -- Think of it as: You get an office, a community, resources with which to do research (and a framework within which to ask for grant/funding if you want), opportunities to advise students, the ability to teach classes when you want. In exchange, you don't get much money -- but also almost zero responsibilities unless you choose to assume them. (source: I'm a CS professor and I got my Ph.D. at MIT while both Stonebraker and Lampson were there.)
dpritchett 12y ago
This is what adjuncting is supposed to be for - folks with industry experience moonlight as professors. The benefit is not primarily salary but networking, knowledge sharing, and helping the next generation of industry professionals. Now it's more of a way to have 2/3 or more of the department work for unliveable wages which allows for an ever-growing administrative overhead in colleges while tuitions double every decade.
- hga 12y ago
  As far as I know, not true at MIT, teaching is done by tenured or tenture track professors, with exceptions like this, or SF author Joe Haldeman, that prove the rule. But, yeah, I hear from lots of sources that adjuncts making peanuts have become the rule rather than the exception in general US academia, and there's no disputing how administrators are taking over higher education, now even desiring to wrest little the faculty still control from them.