Today's interview is with Evan-Jan Williams, a Web and Server Developer, Newspaper Publisher, and Computer Systems Architect. Having worked for twenty years in a variety of software development roles, including web technology, he is uniquely positioned to comment on the efficiency of software creation and the efficacy of current computer coding techniques.
A lifelong Princeton resident, Evan-Jan
received his Bachelor of Arts in Literature from Thomas Edison State
College and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Rutgers
University.
MLAC: Please discuss your grand
endeavor of starting your own newspaper.
EJW: The
newspaper, New Holland Press “A Paper of Discussion”
was started in 1989 and can be described as a paper of discussion.
There are different writers for each issue. This area was first
settled by the Dutch, therefore I felt there were consistent themes
that permeated our society that were missing in the public dialog.
The paper has a positive focus and covers real news as well as
feature stories. I want to help emerging artists and at the same time
I want to help Princeton have a public discourse that is above
average. My interest in computers and mathematics were used to
enhance and construct the newspaper. I had noticed that there were
quite a few empty newspaper boxes on Nassau Street in Princeton,
which meant to me that there was a need for a newspaper.
MLAC: What about the early
beginnings of the newspaper?
EJW: I
started out with one article called “Why
the Need for New Holland Press”.
It was all hand written at first and was photo copied on 8x11 inch
paper. I distributed this paper throughout Princeton. I realized that
a newspaper has to be typeset so I created my own content management
system (CMS) based on PLONE which is a program that is a content
system and is internet based.
MLAC: Why
didn't you use a program that already existed?
EJW:
Because
I'm stubborn and a do
it yourself person.
I needed a system that allowed my writers to be in print and on-line
at the same time. I had to create a system where the blocks that are
on the page can also be seen online. To do this I used a mathematical
structure called a Tree Lattice to allow the reader to be able to
view the same content online as it appears in print on paper. Tree
Lattices are a means of organizing seemingly unrelated content using
one structure. If you think about it, it is pretty incredible to be
able to have a computer system take all the different writers and
different types of content and put them all on one page in an
organized fashion. I rewrote the software for the newspaper in a new
way, and in the process wrote a book explaining what it was all
about.
MLAC: Please
elaborate on your very interesting and helpful book,
Building Consistent Websites, A Mathematical Approach
Using Trees.
EJW:
I
had a vision to create a simple program that would use a 4GL (4th
Generation Language) to create a website. This type of program would
allow the layman to easily create a website by writing in English and
then the computer would compile a website.
My book takes a new approach to building websites. It shows how tree
pictures, common in computer science and mathematics, can be used to
help novices and professionals alike build web pages and other
complex structures, like computer based drawings. The book differs
from conventional computing books in that in addition to text,
pictures and computer code, it contains mathematical concepts that
are then applied. Not a computer textbook in the conventional sense,
as the algorithms used aren't proven to complete in some way, or run
in a certain amount of time. It is my hope that this monograph does
show how to take a new idea; maybe utilizing some mathematical
analysis as opposed to computing theory, to implement an idea in
code. The key concept of the book is that one computation structure,
a tree of course, can be used to represent all the pieces of a
website to create a consistent whole. While work like this has been
done in mathematics, and in some newer programming languages, I want
to make the steps required to develop in this way more clear with
some simple examples.
MLAC: What
are your future plans:
EJW:
I
was happy with my first book but I have plans to rewrite it. Also, I
want to keep the mathematics out of the second edition of the book
Building Consistent Websites, A Mathematical
Approach Using Trees,
which should be more practically focused. I will be using a cutting
edge computer language called 'Haxe', which I am very excited about.
I want to put all of the Tree Lattice information in detail in a book
called Applications of Tree Lattices.
Perhaps I will try to use this theory in another computing
application. I want to package up the software used in New
Holland Press “A Paper of Discussion”
so that other small newspapers (perhaps at schools) can benefit from
it. And in addition to those two books, I have several other ideas
for publication including printing another art book on Nature for New
Holland Press “A Paper of Discussion”.
To
be notified when the second edition of Building
Consistent Websites, A Mathematical Approach Using Trees
is published: editor@newhollandpress.com