Dear Squeakers:

Randy Smith is looking for someone to help him in an interesting project at Sun Labs. For those of you who don't know Randy, he was one of the co-designers of the Self language and also the true guiding light behind the design of Morphic. (Randy and I built the first version of Morphic in Self, before I left Sun Labs to join Alan Kay's group at Apple). Randy has done many other very cool systems, including the Alternate Reality Kit (written in Smalltalk at Xerox PARC), experiments with using audio in the user interface, and experiments with collaborative problem solving using shared online spaces (one system was based on the Alternate Reality Kit, the other based on a multi-user version of Morphic.) Randy used to be a Physics professor, and thus he brings a physicist's perspective to every project that he works on--a desire to boil things down to a small number of powerful principles that can be applied universally.

Randy is also a terrific mentor and very easy to work for and with. I don't know much about this latest project, but I'm sure it will be fascinating, and this is a chance to get in at the very beginning. And, although you will apparently have to program in that vastly inferior language named after a caffeinated beverage, there are any number of interesting ex-Self-group folks around to commiserate with...

If you are interested, please correspond directly to Randy at the address below.

-- John

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From Randy Smith:

Position in Sun Microsystems Research Labs

I anticipate hiring someone to work on a data visualization framework for Java. My hope would be to find a fine programmer who is familiar with UI frameworks and/or visualization techniques. (Master's or PhD in Computer Science desired, but not absolutely required.) The goal is to create a kit in which multi-dimensional data is represented and dynamically filtered in both conventional and innovative ways (such as fisheye-like zooming techniques in spatial and non-spatial dimensions such as color and transparency. Perhaps 3D will play a role.) Ultimately, the end-user should be able to explore, playing with the way the data is mapped to the display. Creative ideas here will be welcomed.

The position will be in the San Francisco Bay Area (Palo Alto / Mt. View), reporting to me (Randy Smith). If interested, please send a resume or resume-like e-mail note to randall.smith@sun.com. --------------------------------------------------------------------