Ars Digita Founder Philip Greenspun

Philip Greenspun is (in no particular order) a photographer, writer, software engineer, Web designer, philosopher, and entrepreneur, and is now the "main man" behind the free Ars Digita University program. Years ago, a gentleman with Philip's wide range of interests and skills was called a "Rennaisance Man." Today -- especially in Philip's case -- the phrase "Internet Man" may be more apt, but the idea is the same. Post questions for Philip below; we'll select 10 of the highest-moderated and send them to him Tuesday afternoon (US EDT). His answers will appear, Open Source-like, "When they're ready."

General interview notes/updates: Richard Stallman has been putting plenty of thought into his answers; they should be along within the next day or two. The SCO Presidents have promised to have their answers to us in time for publication Thursday. The band Metallica has agreed, through their publicist, to do an interview about Napster and its effect on the music industry as soon as they finish the music video they're working on now, hopefully later this week. Next week's scheduled interview guest already knows the answer: 42. Yes, we're talking about Douglas Adams. So don't panic, okay?

- Robin "roblimo" Miller

Comments

online universities?

[Signal 11]

What's your thoughts on how to encourage socializing in a completely online forum? Many people perceive going to college to be, in part, to find friends and people of similar interest as well as to find professional contacts. Any plans in the works to remove some of the isolation inherent in a completely online forum?

Travels with Samantha

[X]

I remeber reading Travels with Samantha when it first came out on the world wide web (some of my first real reading on the web). What struck me about it, aside from the fact that I enjoyed reading it, was how much of yourself was laid bare in the story. Publicly exposing oneself like this is something that celeberties do all the time, but it was (particularly at that time) a rare thing for Joe private citizen to do (although certainly within your nature ;-).

I'm wondering you can describe what happened as a result of exposing so much of yourself online. I remember reading the comments on the story, and there were certainly a wide range of responses, but I was wondering if you noticed any larger consequences?

12 hrs/day * 6 days/week == severe burnout?

[ToastyKen]

When I read about Ars Digita University, the first thing that came to mind was what an extreme amount 12 hrs/day, 6 days/week, on A SINGLE SUBJECT is. I mean, there do exist people who can take that much work, but don't you think a large percentage of your student population would simply burn out?

I go to a major university, there's no way I put in 12 hrs a day of work, and I'm still already stressed out. And that's with multiple subjects so I can take my mind off of one and switch gears occassionally.

Do you have any plans to counter potential burnout?

The Ars Digita University is cool, but...

[hey!]

the real problem I see is that there are people with a clue, and people with degrees, and there's not necessarily much of a correlation positive or negative between the two. Ideally, to improve the situation so clueful people get access to the important ideas of CS and that employers get some better idea that when they hire a degreed engineer they're actually getting something worth a premium.

It seems to me that CS degree work should be opened to more people who would advance by demonstrating the ability to do real work integrating important theoretical CS ideas with real world problems. Yet the very format really excludes a great deal of people, especially those who have to work to support themselves.

Does the Ars Digita program offer any real advance in CS degree program quality or accessibility to people who would benefit themselves and society the most?

Question

[doonesbury]

The idea that you propose is controversial, and potentially disturbing to the entrenched university/degree program - especially considering the billions that these programs earn based on the concept that the "magic paper" only available through degreed universities is the only qualification for intellegence and competence.

A) Where would you like to see this program move towards, in relation to universities;
B) Do you plan on a "pay" version, for people who can actually afford to pay?
C) The qualifications (and I took a *real* good look at them, I really want to go!) are a bit unusual - in that they require SAT scores. I miss by 50 points, but isn't that exactly the attitude that you're trying to escape - that you need a standardized test to determine intellegence, that you need cash to determine eligibility? Or am I reading too much into the program?

Doones

Are any Open Source databases production ready?

[DuBois]

Philip:

I've read "Philip and Alex's Guide..." and hoped to implement your kind of website on my own server. But then I noted that Oracle requires thousands of dollars of licensing fees.

Have you used any of the Open Source databases like MySQL or Postgres enough to recommend one of them for a light-usage site?

Or perhaps none of the Open Source databases are yet ready for production use?

Rennisance man vs. Internet man

[genki]

I notice in the subject that you are described as "Rennisance man" and "Internet man". However, I think that there is a big difference between the two - "Rennisance man" is about having expertiese in everything, where "Internet man" is about having a little knowledge about everything. The internet is about having so much information that you can't possibly be an expert in it all, and so you have to just get a little information. Do you think that a "Rennisance man" is possible in the age of the internet?

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Education and the Poor

[Q-bert][]

Currently most people remain poor because of lack of a good degree from a top school (among a bunch of other things unimportant to this question). Your online University will be giving away for free the knowledge of a good degree from a top school. Do think the Internet can play a part in leveling the field by allowing anyone who wants to receive a good education (good as in Ivy League)?

(if anyone gets what i'm saying and can phrase it better, PLEASE DO SO!)

Will the "University" be open or biased?

[Wee]

I certainly mean no denigration by this, but will this "University" be universal or will it teach only concepts that use Ars Digita's preferred architecture: AOLServer, Tcl and Oracle? For example, you mention that 40 hits per second exposes the limits of Perl/CGI/DBI (which might be a questionable statement in and of itself), but I've worked on teams that built stuff which very nicely handles hundreds of hits per second using Java servlets and MySQL (for only one example). Will this sort of thing be taught in addition to the stuff you guys prefer?

I just can't help but think that the University will be biased in some way. Certainly, it's biased towards rote memorization in applicants (a rather inflammatory earlier statement alluded that a score of at least 1400 on the SATs was a requirement for being bright), but will the technological course material follow? I know that there's an Ivy League ethos that surrounds many people and institutions, and it would be a shame if that same sentiment ruled out "less bright" technologies as well as people in this new University. (And for the record: I work with extremely smart people -- some of whom never graduated college -- who use none of what Ars Digita uses, so I may be a little biased myself... ;-)

Another thought just hit me: Couldn't this University been seen as a thinly veiled way to promote Ars Digita's technological choices? Honestly, I don't know many people that actually use Tcl or AOLServer to do much, especially in a production environment. If future gradutes of your program are well-schooled in using those products, wouldn't they necessarily think of these technologies first when doing future work? Won't they be biased? So can't this just be seen as an "Tcl/AOLServer Mill"?

Again, I don't mean any slight or to seem like a troll, but this whole thing sounds to me like it'll be as well-rounded as any MCSE learning might be.

-B

Do *you* ever suffer from burnout?

[timgriffin]

Given that your interests/tallents are so many and varied, how have you found the last several years of corporate CEO-dom? Inevitably there isn't time to do everything. What do you miss? What's most rewarding? What's most irksome about your responsibilities? What does the future hold for you?

Opinion vs. Fact

[ryanr]

I read "Travels with Samantha" not too long ago when I ran across a link to it. As a result, I poked around photo.net a bit, and ended up buying a paper copy of "Phil and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing." Great book, recommended. Even though it's on the web, it reads better on paper, the book is nicely put together, nice heavy paper, and the photos look good (all stuff Phil will tell you, too. :) )

My question is this:

In most of your writing, you often put some statement out there as fact, when it is actually an opinion. In many cases, I can spot it as such, and just roll my eyes a bit if I happen to disagree. Are you aware that you do this, do you worry about it, or do you expect your readers to spot it and take it as an opinion? Or are you a typcial college professor whose opinion IS fact, and won't be told otherwise? :)

The reason I ask is that I do a little writing myself, and I find it a unnerving to put something in print that becomes more-or-less unchangeable. I.e. I just worry about being "wrong" either because I am plain wrong, or wasn't clear in my statements.

Why tight coupling to a RDBMS?

[kslee]

First of all, thanks a lot for Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing and introducing Edward Tufte's excellect books.

My Question is:
What's the merit of tightly-coupled-to-Oracle architecture of acs(ars digita community system) as a web application platform? ZOPE is in my mind as the not-tightly-coupled-to-any-RDBMS web applicaton platform?

Some people came to ZOPE because they can not afford an Oracle(in my case, the prefernce of python to tcl played a lot).

Or any comment on the web application servers/platforms which does not have the honor of being commented upon in your web tools review is apprecitated GREATLY!


I know I have almost no chance of being moderated up. But please do nice to a question simillar to mine but written by a native English(or European language) writer.

Techno-social considerations

[jellicle]

The technical challenge of building an online community is less than half of the total work involved. Social considerations are tremendously important, and a change in one line of code can totally change the flavor and viability of a community. It is my suspicion that ArsDigita has not yet run into communities as challenging as Slashdot, that is, places where some percentage of the population is dedicated to destroying the place through denial of service attacks of various forms. The challenge is to enforce some level of responsibility without eliminating anonymity, without being called a censor, without tracking users like a stalker... Few if any online communities can be said to have gotten it entirely "right", but somehow the majority of real-world communities manage to have civil discourse at a reasonable level. This is really a sort of sociology problem - and hardly an easy one - which is instantiated in computer code. How would you solve these problems? Or, more precisely, how would you start to learn how to solve these problems?

And no, "Trial and error." is not an acceptable answer. :)

--
Michael Sims-michael at slashdot.org

Poor for want of a degree?

[jabber]

Hook, line and sinker! I heard the trolling motor over-head, but I decided to bite anyway.

Are you saying that if the poor had a prestigious degree, they would cease to be poor?

Reminds me of a little story/joke:

A very devoutly religious man went to church each morning, and prayed heartily: "Please Lord, let me win the Lottery."

The years went on, and the man's faith stayed steadfast, but the laws of economics drove him into poverty. He continued his daily payer though: "Please Lord! I am a faithful and humble servant. Please let me win the Lottery!"

Eventually, the man died of old age. He went to heaven and met God. He asked: "Lord, I prayed to you every day, I kept my faith and lived a good life. The only thing I ever asked for was that you would let me win the Lottery, but you never did. Why?"

And God said onto him: " I would have, but it was up to you to go and buy a ticket."

It's not exactly on track with your argument, but it's in the same spirit. An education does not assure wealth and success. One has to be motivated to succeed, and in the US (more than anywhere else), the desire to succeed and the willingness to work hard for one's success is all that is really required.

Some people get lucky, and win the Lottery. Others have doors unlocked for them with a Ivy-covered degree. But it is up to the individual to walk through the open door. A motivated person can break down a locked door, or crawl in through a window. (Who here hasn't padded their Resume early on??)

It's more about knowledge and skill than about 'proof of skill' that a degree is. The degree may get you in the door, but what you do inside is what keeps you there. A poor person who is willing to work hard, and can think on their feet, does not need to be poor for long.

As for the reason why poor people remain poor... IMHO, it is because they've come to believe that that is what they are, what they will always be, and worst of all, what they deserve to be.

For all his twisted thinking, Nietsche got this right: "Slave Mentality". People who think that 'the Man' is 'keeping them down', and who put the blame for their misfortune on the shoulders of someone other than themselves, will always and forever be poor. By not accepting responsibility for their own fate, the perpetually poor give control of their lives over to people in whose best interest it is to have a poor, unhappy and frightenned lower class.

The lower class exists because people do not realize that by getting off their welfare-subsidised ass (and I'm not talking about the 'down on their luck' poor, but the perpetually poor, welfare-breeding-welfare poor) they can only improve their situation.

The lack of education has little to do with it.

Your outlook on industry partnerships?

[petervessenes]

Phil, I own what is, to my knowledge, the third ACS based company in the world, ybos.net. We have a fairly aggressive growth plan, (more aggressive than furfly's for example), and I have a number of questions:

• What's Ars' outlook on industry partnerships going forward? We're too small still to do the projects you guys want, (million+/year) and I don't think we'll be there for at least a year or two. I believe that making partnerships, and building relationsips with companies like ybos is important for you as you go forward: more alternative service providers gain you mindshare in the same way that giving away a year of free training at Ars U does.
• How do you feel about ACS/Pg? Using Oracle is a major blow to doing smaller projects, obviously. Also, I know the state of Postgres two years ago, so I don't blame you for the switch to Oracle from Illustra, but do you have intention to backport to a more open database architecture, or 'bless' Ben Adida and co's work on the ACS/Pg? I think what appeals to me about ACS/Pg is not Postgres (rather obviously), but the more open nature of the development -- Ybos has begun releasing useful ACS modules to the public, and enhancing some slow-moving Ars ones, and it's a medium-level frustration that they'll never get rolled into your toolkit, or that we have to develop side by side. (for example, bryan che kindly lent us his data model early for the events module, but we developed about half a module under his data model before you released the newer module, and we scratched it and started over.) This leads to my final question:
• Do you have thoughts on the relative openness of the ACS development? Would you consider an 'inner circle' development model that would let confirmed developers check code in and out of the development releases? I think that you'd see some significant benefits. I ask about this rather than a 'true' open source system because I'm betting you'd say "no way" to an aggressively open model. I probably would, too.

Meanwhile, I hope you're well! Congratulations on the recent funding. I hope we're not far off.. : ).

What are you shooting now?

[HerrNewton]

I know this will likely get pushed aside by more net oriented questions, but what are you shooting for a body, lenses and film these days? I know, different tools for different occassions, but what is your most common setup?

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web as IBM 3270 terminal

[martinbeck]

I read your book, and you seem to have a very anti-PC attitude (where PC means Mac, Windows, or Linux box on a user's own desk). Why is this? There are clearly a lot of interesting end-user applications that require either lots of local cpu horsepower (video editing, games) or a concern about privacy (tax returns) that make them unsuitable for the web. Given the enormous number of cheap transistors you can put onto a desktop, why do you think that a return to mainframe style dumb terminals and huge servers is the best architecture for so many things?

Evolution of Universities

[LL]

Universities have an interesting pedigree, originating from the monastaries that taught reading/writing (not surprisingly intended to keep records of the church assets :-)) to libraries of learning (a major drawcard of the golden age of Arabian culture), to the Renaisance liberal college (Oxford, Royal Society of London, etc) and currently industrial scientific powerhouses driving the internet transformation (MIT, Stanford, etc).

Given that you see failings in the current system (as indicated by your desire to set up a private course), can you speculate on how you see the tertiary sector evolving. Perhaps you have some views on how private institutes or providers might foster the quarternary education sector (which can be broadly defined as post-post-graduate, professional life-long-learning, university of the third age, or adult free-thinking depending on the buzzword-du-jour or mental biases). Proto-examples I'm aware of vaguely heading this direction are University of Phoenix (US), Open University (UK/Europe), and Universitas21 (Austrasia).

In short, what do you believe the future holds for the next organised stage of research-intensive learning/teaching?

LL

Data Modeling Tools

[Tassach]

Dr. Greenspun,

Given that the ArsDigita Community System is so heavily database-driven, I was wondering what tools you use for data modeling and schema management.

What is your opinion of modeling tools like Sybase's PowerDesigner and Platinum's ERwin? What kinds of tools do you think are necessary to facilitate the development of highly portable, vender independent database designs? Finally, what is your opinion of UML and to what extent does ArsDigita use it?

"The axiom 'An honest man has nothing to fear from the police'