Who am I

My name is Mike Mol. I founded Rosetta Code. It was an idea I'd had during a Christmas vacation, before I'd heard of other programming chrestomathy sites.

But who am I, really? I'm the Administrator. That guy who's got so much to do, he has to have other people run the site for him. (Hats off to the Bureaucrats!) On a good week, I can give pointers to where I think RC should go, and how it should be organized. With luck, someone else has the time to make the changes.

I try to act as a facilitator, to let the site and its community grow, and give a push (or pull) when things slow down.

If you'd like to get in touch with me, I'm on Google Talk as mikemol@gmail.com. (Also my email address.) I leave the client running, whether I'm there or not; Drop me a line, and I'll get back to you.

I'm back on IRC. You can find me on #rosettacode at irc.freenode.net.

Languages

I've been a Linux geek since 1999-2000, so I've got a healthy respect for Perl, the Bourne Again SHell and C, but my day job involves coding in Windows, which means I've lately been spending most of my time in C++. I'm competent with PHP as well, and have written a couple applications that made good use of JavaScript.

RSS

I currently keep an eye on Rosetta Code by adding Special:Recentchanges to my Google Reader. I find it's a great way to stay apprised. I also watch a few other programming-related feeds:

programming.reddit.com -- All sorts of programming info.
The Old New Thing -- Best practices and explanations for coding in Windows.
Worse than Failure -- What not to do.

Rosetta Code

Rosetta Code came from an idea I had during Christmas of 2006. I'd recently revisited Wikibooks' List of Hello World Programs, and didn't care for its limited scope. As I was President of the GRCC Computer Club at the time, I convinced the club to host a project called Goodbye World (shortly renamed to Rosetta Code). I chose MediaWiki because I felt it would let me get started more quickly than any other system. Once I had a few categories and tasks set up, I submitted the page to Slashdot.

Well, if you take Slashdot, a shared hosting account, and an uncached MediaWiki setup, and throw them in a blender, you get a big mess. The kind folks at Geekalize noticed, and offered RC free hosting on their dedicated server. That carried RC through until the end of the arrangement in the fall of 2007. RC now runs on my own shared hosting account.

Policy

(I'll have to find a better place for this eventually.)

I'm something of a benevolent dictator here on Rosetta Code. One thing I've discovered, though, is that other people are usually right. Hence, if you have a suggestion, let me know. However...

Language Promotion

I explicitly allow and endorse language promotion on RC, so long as it takes the form of code. I occasionally seek out language developers and enthusiasts to get regular contributors for new languages. Language comparison is the primary goal of Rosetta Code, and enthusiastic contributors help towards that. --Short Circuit 21:22, 11 December 2007 (MST)