Photo cropped from “Cross-browser JSON request” by Niall Kennedy

Chris Wilson is the Platform Architect of Internet Explorer, but has been involved in web browsers from close to the very beginning having worked on the original NCSA Mosaic. He sat down with us at the Ajax Experience conference in 2007 and kindly let us barrage him with a series of questions, like:

- How did you get your start in computers?
- How much of a role did math specialization in your schooling play in your software career?
- Would you recommend college?
- Would you study computer science if you went back to school today?
- You started out with BASIC; how did you make the leap to more advanced programming languages?
- How did you make the transition to architect from programmer?
- How did you get from NCSA to Microsoft?
- You’ve worked for small start-ups and one of the largest companies in the world; which environment do you prefer?
- How do you manage a code base like IE?
- What are some of your regrets?
- What’s the back-story on CSS?
- Are you sad about any of the Web’s missed opportunities?
- Any features that you’re surprised people aren’t using?

We hope you enjoy this episode. Note: Sorry about the cell phone interference in the beginning of the podcast; it clears up just a few minutes into the show.

FeedBurner feed

How did influential “luminaries” in technology fields–the CTOs, Chief Architects, Influential Curmudgeons, and so forth–get their start? What advice would they give to others? Tech Luminaries is a podcast series that aims to answer these questions through informal chats with various stars in tech.

Tech Luminaries is a project of Ben and Dion, two geeks that have been working together on various tech industry projects for the last few years.

As the inventor of JavaScript and co-founder / CTO of Mozilla, Brendan’s impact on the Web has been enormous. We first met Brendan at O’Reilly’s Ajax Summit in May 2005 and were immediately fascinated with the depth and breadth of his knowledge–and the break-neck speed with which he shares it.

A few years later, we had the chance to sit down with Brendan to discuss his career and learn more about the decisions that have led to the Web as we know it. We hope you enjoy the inaugural episode of Tech Luminaries as we had a blast recording it.

Note: We’re having problems getting the WordPress.com feed to include the podcast as an enclosure, and in getting WordPress.com to change the <link> header to point to FeedBurner, which does properly include the ‘cast as an enclosure. Please use the FeedBurner RSS feed:

FeedBurner feed