Long ago in a university far far away….
I told some friends of mine that someday I was going to write a book series on the Heroes of Computer Science. These books would be about the great stories of the Computer Science people. Not the normal stories about them writing cool operating systems or designing the killer apps for a modern day world, but instead the true stories about them in their alternate lives as heroes to the world and how they help save people. I cannot remember how this conversation started, but I can remember that I told Kristie Simpson that the first book would be about her. Since I doubt that I will ever actually write a book about this I think it is fair to welch on that a little and write some thoughts on a larger group.
Hell I don’t even know what I would write about, but I do know that we got a pretty good laugh out of coming up with all the people that we would start writing the books about. I mean can you picture Linus Torvaldus (creator of Linux) as the sword swinging barbarian in plate mail? Or how about Richard Stallman (creator of the GNU project) as a paladin? Maybe the two of them joining together to fight the evil Bill the Dragon? Does that not just seem like the goofy-ist thought process around? Well not even close for me. Of couse they would have to have their own good dragon, Tux. Maybe they would seek out the Wand of Ossis to aid the in their quest for a better world. Along the way they pick up a merry band of compatriots such as Alan Cox the Cleric, Rick vanRiel the forgetful Wizard, and the guy who created sourceforge as a dwarf. Heck maybe I do have something to write after all.
In truth this is somewhat of a sane attempt at foolishness compared to other stuff in the world I guess, but I cannot help but think about everyone’s general perception of computer people and how these stories would kick that in the butt just for the fun of doing it. I hope some day Mike Lamont gets to a chance to read these just for the kicks it might give him since he was the other one making the joke and I am sure that he will give me some more people to fit into it.