I particularly
recommend the section titled "Research Through
Development of Installed Tools" (#SEC27). Not only is
it accessible to the nontechnical reader, it also sheds
light on how closely intertwined Stallman's political
philosophies are with his software-design philosophies.
A sample excerpt follows: EMACS could not have been
reached by a process of careful design, because such
processes arrive only at goals which are visible at the
outset, and whose desirability is established on the
bottom line at the outset. Neither I nor anyone else
visualized an extensible editor until I had made one,
nor appreciated its value until he had experienced it.
EMACS exists because I felt free to make individually
useful small improvements on a path whose end was not
in sight.
Guy Steele expresses similar admiration. Currently a
research scientist for Sun Microsystems, he remembers
Stallman primarily as a "brilliant programmer with the
ability to generate large quantities of relatively
bug-free code.
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