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1278 interviews since 2009

A picture of Douglas Crockford

Douglas Crockford

Developer, writer

in developer, windows, writer

Who are you, and what do you do?

I am Douglas Crockford. I am famous for having discovered that JavaScript has good parts. That was the first important discovery of the twenty-first century. I also discovered JSON, the world's best loved data interchange format.

I am a programmer and a writer. My most recent book is How JavaScript Works. I am currently working on four more books about security, mathematics, Charles K Bliss, and the Misty language. I do not know yet which will be done first.

What hardware do you use?

My primary machine is a Dell 17 inch laptop. I also have an Asus NovaGo that I use when travelling, and for testing my ARM projects, such as the DEC64 library.

And what software?

I do most of my text editing with Sublime Text. I like it because it is fast and it lets me turn off most of its annoying advanced features. I like simplicity.

I improve my JavaScript with JSLint. I test my JavaScript on Firefox, Chrome, and Edge, in that order.

I use Visual Studio 19 to compile C and assemble x64 and ARM64. Microsoft provides a lot of value for free.

I keep my projects on OneDrive. I use GitHub Desktop to push my public code.

I use Prince to make PDFs of my books.

I occasionally use these Adobe CS4 programs: Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Acrobat, Illustrator, and Flash. I don't use any of them enough to justify a subscription to their latest cloud offerings.

What would be your dream setup?

When I started programming, my university's computer had 16k of memory, filled a large room with a raised floor and fire suppression system, required constant maintenance, and cost millions of dollars.

I am happy with the hardware situation. I can easily carry both of my laptops in one hand. They are cheap and very reliable, and literally a million times better than the computer I shared at school.

Unfortunately, software is only about a hundred times better. We still have a long long way to go to make the software for the dream setup.