Dr. Ron Goldman is a researcher working at Sun Microsystems Laboratories on alternative software development methodologies and new software architectures. He is currently a member of the SunSPOT's project that is investigating the use of Java on small embedded, wireless devices. He was instrumental in defining the vision and details for the java.net website and helped start the Javapedia project. He has advised various Sun open source projects including NetBeans, OpenOffice, and Jini. He is the co-author of the book Innovation Happens Elsewhere: Open Source as Business Strategy.

Prior to Sun, he developed a program to generate and manipulate visual representations of complex data for use by social scientists as part of a collaboration between NYNEX Science & Technology and the Institute for Research on Learning. He has a continuing interest in the design of programming languages and has developed various programming environments (IDEs). He has a PhD in computer science from Stanford University where he was a member of the robotics group.

His research interests include Autonomic Computing, biologically-inspired computing, Collaborative Computing, open source, Programming Languages, Software, software robustness and User Interfaces.

Ron has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University (1983), a M.A. in Computer Science from Stanford University (1979) and a B.A. in Math, Music, Physics & Theater from the Wesleyan University (1974).

Reviewed books: