My current passions are object-oriented programming, Java, the open-source movement, data mining, spatial interfaces, and adaptive software, as exemplified by the Java open-source KnownSpace Project. A related project, Symphony, is intended to give infrastructure support for remote peer-to-peer Java development. Symphony will carry a new class of user interfaces, built with yet another project, Fluency (October, 2005, design document) an editable, exportable, and sharable user interface builder intended partly for non-programmers (also called `end-users') as well as programmers. These are all application projects of my ongoing design patterns seminar, B629/B490. Alpha versions are here: Hydrogen, Helium, and Fluency

Here's the original KnownSpace Manifesto, and the introductory set of KnownSpace Links. (KnownSpace evolved out of my Spring 1999 B669 (Personalized Data Mapping) course. Here is the (very) old KnownSpace site.) The serious might want to browse the current (as of Spring 2002) KnownSpace Developer site, and the completely demented might want to download the KnownSpace Hydrogen alpha release.

KnownSpace is a visual and adaptive personal data manager. Why do I feel it's necessary? Here is a fable on web data management, an explanation of what's wrong with today's interfaces, a Star Trek example of how context can improve search, a comment about why personal computers don't exist yet, a discussion of why software designers make us monkeys at the keyboard, a sketch of how much more personal computers could easily become, and a story explaining why today's computers suck.

KnownSpace is related to several other projects in interfaces, adaptive software, intelligent agents, collaborative filtering, networking, searching, and browsing: Xerox PARC's Placeless Documents and Harland, Yale's Lifestreams, Maryland's Jazz, UCSD's AVS, Illinois's VisIT, Sun's Kansas, Sony's TimeScape (pdf file), the open-source projects: TouchGraph, Nexist, NeuroGrid, Cougaar, and Grassroots, and the commercial efforts: OpenCola, WebMap, UrbanPixel, TheBrain, Boswell, InfoSelect, HumanLinks, GroveMinder, ReiserFS, Pepper, Kartoo, Grokker, SixDegrees, and now (Spring 2008) Twine. (Note: Lifestreams has evolved into Scopeware.) Here's an overview paper, A New Data Model: Persistent Attribute-Centric Objects, in (gzipped postscript) and (pdf) with Ricardo Baeza-Yates and Terry Jones.

Teaching

I also write books. Some of my books, papers, and software---including the 1991 electronic publishing white paper---are available online at another of my domains, www.roxie.org.

	The Human Swarm: How Network Forces Shape Our Lives (in progress, 2016)
	Bleeding at the Keyboard: An Introduction to Java Programming (on hiatus as of 2009, but still web-available).
	Slaves of the Machine: The Quickening of Computer Technology, MIT Press, 1997. (Translated to Italian as: Schiavi del computer? Editori Laterza, 1999, second edition, 2001; translated to Korean as Gi-Gae No-Yae.) MIT Press description.
	Moths to the Flame: The Seductions of Computer Technology, MIT Press, 1996. (Translated to Italian as Le seduzioni del computer, Società Editrici il Munlino.) Complete text; also available at MIT Press and Open Book Systems.
	Compared To What?: An Introduction to The Analysis of Algorithms, Computer Science Press/W. H. Freeman, 1992. (Translated to Greek as: Αλγοριθμοι: αυαλνση και σνγκριση, (Εκδοσειζ Κριτικη, 2005.)) W. H. Freeman description.
	Foundations of Genetic Algorithms, (editor), Morgan Kaufmann, 1991.