Ken Arnold
Ken Arnold | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1958 |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation(s) | Software developer, author |
| Known for | Co-creating the game Rogue, contributions to BSD Unix, advancement of Java platform |
Kenneth Cutts Richard Cabot Arnold (born 1958) is an American software developer notable for co-creating the dungeon-crawling game Rogue during the 1980s, making key contributions to the original Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) Unix system, and playing a significant role in the advancement of the Java platform. He is also well-known for his publications on C and C++, including his column "The C Advisor" in UNIX Review.
At Berkeley
Following a year at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Arnold enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, where he completed his A.B. in computer science in 1985. During his tenure as president of the Berkeley Computer Club, he was instrumental in enhancing the 2BSD and 4BSD Unix releases, with notable achievements including:
- curses and termcap: These are portable libraries designed for cursor control and screen handling on ASCII terminals, originally inspired by Bill Joy's vi screen control routines. Curses facilitated cross-terminal full-screen interfaces, establishing itself as a fundamental display management library.
- Rogue: Alongside Michael Toy and Glenn Wichman, Arnold co-developed this full-screen role-playing game that introduced an innovative overhead dungeon perspective, effectively laying the groundwork for the roguelike genre.
- fortune: Arnold’s iteration of this program, which displays random quotations, became the BSD standard due to its comprehensive database and simple plain-text file structure that aligned with Unix design principles.
- ctags: A utility created to generate source code cross-references, streamlining software development processes.
Selected bibliography
- JavaSpaces: Principles, Patterns, and Practice; Eric Freeman, Susanne Hupfer, Ken Arnold;
- The Java Programming Language; Fourth Edition; Ken Arnold, James Gosling, David Holmes;
- The Jini(TM) Specification, Second Edition; Ken Arnold, Jim Waldo and the Jini technology team; Addison Wesley.
- "Fear and Loathing on the UNIX Trail -- Confessions of a Berkeley system mole."; Doug Merritt with Ken Arnold and Bob Toxen; Unix Review, January 1985
- "Rogue: Where It has Been, Why It Was There, And Why It Shouldn't Have Been There In The First Place"; USENIX Conference Proceedings; Boston, July 1982, p. 139 ff; Ken C.R.C. Arnold, Michael C. Toy
See also
External links
- Ken Arnold's Artima weblog
- Ken Arnold's java.net weblog
- curses library
- Glenn Wichman's perspective on Rogue history
- Napkin Look and Feel for Swing — A GUI featuring a hand-drawn aesthetic