TUG Interview Corner

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There are two ideas behind these interviews: (a) technology is created by and evolves with use by people, and the points of view and backgrounds of the people influence the technology; (b) there are lots of people who are relatively new to the TeX community and therefore do not know much about the people who are already significant contributors to the community.

This Interview Corner was coordinated for many years by Dave Walden, who spent a lifetime in computer R&D but who was a relative newcomer to TeX and friends when he started doing these interviews in 2004. Dave was a serious user of (La)TeX (see his TeX Land web pages), but not a particularly expert user. He did these interviews in hopes that other users of TeX will be interested in knowing more about the evolution and use of TeX and friends, and the people behind them.

Dave stepped down from the Interview Corner in 2021, and passed away in 2022. He always encouraged others to participate in this and his other projects, and a new volunteer to continue with the interviews would be most welcome; please email interviews@tug.org.

Interview subjects are chosen based on (a) seeking diversity in many dimensions, (b) recommendations from people about who should be interviewed, and (c) potential interview subjects being willing to be interviewed. If you'd like to suggest subjects for future interviews, or are interested in conducting interviews yourself, please contact us.

Please also contact us if you see a problem with this website. (A program generates the HTML for the website and the interviews, based on the system of m4 files described in our paper about this interviews project.)

In addition to the TUG interviews, this page also lists other interviews, memoirs, etc. and some histories of TeX, including an extensive list of interviews, lectures, and other material by or about Don Knuth.


TUG published a book containing the interviews through March 2009, with additional material. The book is for sale at discount to TUG members and others.

Interviews

The list is alphabetical by last name. The one or two activities listed for each interviewee are meant as just a hint about each interviewee and are accurate as of the date of the interview. We do not update the interviews after they are published.

A chronological list of interviews is also available.

Participants in the Stanford TeX Project [#stanfordtexproject]

In preparation for TUG 2010: TeX's 25 anniversary, we tried to expand our interview series to include Stanford students who worked with Don Knuth to develop TeX and Metafont in the late 1970s and into the mid-1980s. The TeX Project people we interviewed are:

All but one of the above people have a chapter in the commemorative book we prepared for TUG2010. All of them, along with Knuth, participated in a panel discussion during the conference.

Other interviews, memoirs, etc., in TUGboat and elsewhere

The TeX Community Blog is doing its own interview series. Originally Paulo Cereda did the interviews, but others in the community later joined Paulo during the interview sessions. They have a dedicated chatroom for interviewing their members; anyone can visit the chatroom and submit questions to the interviewee, and Paulo serves in an editorial role.

Other interviews, remembrances, etc. (including additional items for some people listed above).

Some histories of TeX


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