My Philosophy of Computer Science
Updated May 3, 2009 - Click here or scroll to bottom for links to older versions of this page.
I am drawn to computer science and related technology fields by my creative and problem-solving impulses. The joy of creation is alive and well for me in working with technology, and I often find that my projects encompass hardware, software, and visual design. My experience in open source software development has taught me useful skills and habits, including modularity of code changes, documentation of progress, and awareness of existing software available for extension. The sense of "standing on the shoulders of giants" is strong in my open source experience, and while I don't see open-source software as a moral obligation, I do often see it as a beneficial community endeavor.
Furthermore, there is a joy and fascination for me in the new and the nifty, and when I am able to contribute to such development, I find it rewarding. While it is not always possible or desirable for me to retransitional myself only to the cutting edge, I value the perspectives and the questions that new technology brings to a well-rounded technologist.
My interest in human-computer interaction began growing when I realized that I, like all programmers, am not like a normal user, and that I need to take special care to ensure that the hardware, software, and experiences I create make sense not only to me, but to users without the idiosyncratic "CS" or "software engineering" view of the world. As I learned more about usability, I started noticing ways the things I interact with daily could be improved, and these observations became a part of the way I saw the world. This integration of an interaction-based viewpoint indicated to me that I would find a path in HCI in addition to CS fulfilling.