Few professions give a person the power to independently create systems that do important and interesting things, and see that process through from conception to completion. I regard software development more as a creative endeavor than an analytical one, and believe that most innovation depends on that view. My primary development interests are in messaging, Natural Language Processing, and game theory. Closed Source can mean those things if everyone involved is really smart, which isn't usually the case. OO and XML are more than just buzz-words.
Small groups comprised of talented individuals are where important things happen.
Speaker and tutorial presenter at the O'Reilly Open Source Conference. Winner of the 2001 Damian Conway Award for Technical Excellence for two papers on Natural Language Processing. All materials 1995-2001 by Daniel G. Brian .