ozan (oz) yigit
electric: oz+at+cs+dot+yorku+dot+ca
The message that precedes all others -- in art as well as life -- is
simple:
pay attention
[Harlan Ellison, intro to slippage, 1997]
i used to work at sun microsystems as a software engineer.
my old blog brainstorms.
for now, i blog at
brainstorms [next bit].
a web page is always under construction. here is
whatsnew.
wily executable for Mac OS X
a new win for wily
-
I maintain the wily editor, a unix
rewrite of rob pike's acme editor for
plan 9.
photography
commodity, firmness, delight.
logo design
coming soon
pointers
software development
- Every programmer should have a copy of Kernighan & Pike's
The Practice of Programming.
- A collection of non-cryptographic hash functions.
- Will Clinger's note on
working code, correct code, good code.
- Latest Scheme report (R^5RS) is here.
- Marsaglia's post
on RNG's for C. Help stamp out bad RNGs.
- death of quicksort: see Doug McIlroy's SP&E
paper and associated
antiquicksort code.
- The UNIX-HATERS Handbook is here (original
location.) a must read for those interested in a critical view of
unix, and how things changed in a decade. a lot of food for thought, but
probably no longer what UHH authors intended.
public source (some of my minor public-domain software pieces)
Some of my images
Comics
adopted public source
Some useful bits of software I have tinkered with. If they are here, they
are public domain. Sorry, no certification marks or other
artifical sweeteners. public source, as "open" as it gets.
computer science hall of shame
- xml. to quote rob pike:
sometimes when you fill the vacuum, it still sucks.
also see this
note by david leonard.
- ant. see quote above.
weep.
- mpeg-4: stop. pay toll.
download. damaged goods. skip.
- windowsxp:
attempting world domination with the leftovers from mediocre computer science.
- Unified Modeling Language.
industrial strength, vigorous hand-waving at its best.
-
worse is better!?
given the amount of attention these peripheric, selectively clued essays
have received, and the fame they have generated, one may have
to agree with the cartoonish conclusion!
Miscellaneous
computing research and development interests
- programming languages, eg.
awk,
scheme,
ml, newtonscript, oberon, ada, java, prolog, C,
icon, snobol. a variant
of my portable implementation of scheme (psi) used to power some of the
SoftQuad products, like
sculptor. It was the first
industrial use of scheme as an extension language.
i have also implemented [for one reason or another] a number
of languages including prolog, m4, a ratfor-like pre-processor
for vms dcl, and gdmo.
- firewalls, network protocols.
- protocol design and verification (see
spin for
one of the best tools in this area)
- literate programming.
- operating systems
eg. Plan 9
[now open-sourced, getting real-world exposure]
openbsd etc. [i once knew vms internals.]
- profiling/benchmarking. I implemented & used random PC sampling as a way
to examine operating system behaviour (VMS kernel) more than a decade before
a version of the idea was
published by DEC ultrix group.
- regular expressions, external hashing, amortized algorithms.
- software tools.
- software change and build management, eg.
dtree.
- systems administration.
about books
now reading (or rereading)
|
Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law
to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity by Lawrence
Lessig. Lessig is a hero of mine; He is deep and sharp, and writes
extremely well. This is an especially important book, and should be
required reading for anyone who creates and cares about
the culture those creations help shape.
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SPIN Model Checker, The: Primer and Reference Manual by Gerard
Holzmann. If you are a serious software engineer, you should know about
spin and model checking.
If you are serious about spin, you have to have this book.
It is erudite, interesting, at times difficult, but very important.
(I keep two copies, one at the office, and one at my home lab)
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The Transparent Society by David Brin. An amazing, thought
provoking book about privacy, openness, and the possibilities for freedom in a
world covered with microphones, cameras and other public and private
information. Brin's site has more of
his writings on related topics. a must read for the modern intellectual.
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|
Firewalls and Internet Security by William Cheswick et al.
A worthy succesor to the first edition, which was one of the most important
books on the topic. Always wise, if not always deep. If you want lots of
scripts without insights, you may wish to look elsewhere.
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Interconnections (Second Edition) by Radia Perlman.
[If you don't know who she is, you do not need the book. If you do, you
already have the book.:)]
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The Cartoon Guide to Statistics by Gonick & Smith. One of the
most informative books on the central ideas of modern statistics. One rarely
finds so much enlightenment in such an entertaining, well-drawn package.
Henry's review is here, with his permission.
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book lists
- John Mashey's book lists circa 1991.
[comp.arch,comp.benchmarks]
- an out-of-date reading list for
software (networking, firewalls) developers. i'm happy to report that
the second edition of firewalls and internet security is out, and
is excellent.
- articles on content protection, open-source,
intellectual property etc.
some of my capsule book
reviews.
favorite bookstores
- Sleuth of Baker Street
possibly the finest mystery bookstore on the planet.
1600 Bayview Avenue
Toronto, On
Canada M4G 3B7
tel: 416-483-3111 fax 416-483-3141
web site just starting. see here
- Bakka
Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror since 1972
598 Yonge Street
Toronto M4Y 1Z3
ph [416] 963 9993
fx [416] 963 9112
bakkaphoenixbooks.com
bakka book reviews (1996)
nikon
These pages are gratefully adopted from Unklbil
(Bill Briggs, CWO-2 USN (retired)).
various
links to some of my family, friends and teachers.
some of my papers are here.
some quotes.
some political thoughts.
rules
ozan's unnumbered rule:
anyone who teaches and practices in a field still in its infancy
has an informally specified, ad-hoc and bug-ridden collection of rules
that often amuse but rarely enlighten.
[see greenspun's tenth rule for an example]
useful advice
Almost as much time can be wasted reading web pages as constructing them.
Get back to work!
stats
ipod: 17 genres, 227 artists, 107 albums, 1581 songs, 7.18 gb
litera scripta manet
ars sine scienta nihil est.
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