The World According to Professor James A. Finnegan : A Collection of Entertaining Essays about Computers, Life, the Universe, and Everything Else. Este artículo no está disponible.The World According to Professor James A. Finnegan : A Collection of Entertaining Essays about Computers, Life, the Universe, and Everything Else

"Don't take this book too seriously.

We certainly did not!" -- DC and RH

Danny Cohen is a computer scientist who was active in the development of realtime applications over packet switching networks such as the ARPAnet and today's Internet. Among his contributions is the 1980 landmark paper that introduced the concept of "endianness" to computer systems. He also started the MOSIS project for silicon chip fabrication.

Starting in the late 1970s, Danny Cohen began writing satirical short stories, primarily about communication protocols in computer systems, under the pseudonym of Professor James A. Finnegan, noted professor at the mythical Oceanside University in Kansas.

These stories, plus some of Cohen's more serious works, are gathered here as chapters in a single collection. All were written to be both fun and informative, and as Professor Finnegan likes to point out, "any resemblance between these stories and reality is intentional."

About this book: This book shows that technical ideas may be conveyed through entertaining writing. The 25 chapters herein focus primarily on communication protocols in computer systems. Some chapters were writtten to be more serious; some less. But all--even the satirical ones that passed peer review and were published as significant scientific contributions--were intended to be both funny and informative.

About the author of this book: Professor Finnegan was born in Oceanview, Kansas, where he completed his scientific education through a M.Sc. in Engineering and a Ph.D. in Computer Science. Through his entire academic career he always finished in the top 90% of his classes.

After schooling, he joined the ADP industry to gain practical experience in computing. His numerous innovations, patents, and technical papers, which he published in the scientific literature while working in industry, have earned him the admiration of all of his peers.

Later he was inducted into the Computer Science faculty as a professor at his alma mater, Oceanview University. There he is grooming for success the next generations of computer scientists by teaching them to follow in his footsteps.

About the author of the author of this book: Danny Cohen has been programming computers since 1962, which by Moore's Law were then about 34,359,738,368 times slower than they are today. He received his Ph.D. from Ivan Sutherland at Harvard. Danny remains a student of Ivan's.

Danny was on the Computer Science faculties of Harvard, Caltech, the Technion, and USC. He has worked for computer companies such as Myricom, which he co-founded; Sun Microsystems, where he was a Distinguished Engineer; and Oracle. Danny spent most of his career at the Information Sciences Institute of USC, where he led the first demonstrations of packet switching for real-time telephony and video conferencing. A strong believer in the principle that "not knowing how to solve a problem is not a reason not to attack it," he also began the MOSIS chip fabrication project at USC/ISI.

Danny is a commercial pilot, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the IEEE, and an inaugural inductee of the Internet Hall of Fame. He is perhaps best known for introducing the terms "Little-Endian" and "Big-Endian" to computer science. Danny is a proud bona fide associated member of the Flat Earth Society, and he has the certificate to prove it.