Douglas Crockford is an American
computer programmer
A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software.
A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...
who is involved in the development of the
JavaScript
JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior, of ...
language. He specified the data format
JSON
JSON (JavaScript Object Notation, pronounced ; also ) is an open standard file format and data interchange format that uses human-readable text to store and transmit data objects consisting of attribute–value pairs and arrays (or other se ...
(JavaScript Object Notation), and has developed various JavaScript related tools such as the static code analyzer
JSLint and minifier
JSMin. Of
his books, "JavaScript: The Good Parts" was published in 2008, followed by "How JavaScript Works" in 2018. He was a senior JavaScript architect at
PayPal
PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper ...
until 2019, and is also a writer and speaker on JavaScript, JSON, and related
web technologies.
Education
Crockford earned a degree in Radio and Television from
San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different ...
[Douglas Crockford speaker biography](_blank)
, New Paradigms for Using Computers conference, IBM Almaden Research Center, August 22, 1996 in 1975. He took classes in
FORTRAN and worked with a university lab's computer.
Career
Crockford purchased an
Atari 8-bit computer in 1980 and wrote the game ''
Galahad and the Holy Grail'' for the
Atari Program Exchange
Atari Program Exchange (APX) was a division of Atari, Inc. that sold software via mail-order for the Atari 8-bit family of home computers. Quarterly APX catalogs were sent to all registered Atari 8-bit owners. APX encouraged any programmer, not ju ...
(APX), which resulted in
Chris Crawford hiring him at
Atari, Inc. While at Atari, Crockford wrote another game, ''Burgers!'', for APX and a number of experimental audio/visual demos that were freely distributed.
After
Warner Communications
Warner Media, LLC ( traded as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City, United States.
It was originally established in 1972 by ...
sold the company, he joined
National Semiconductor
National Semiconductor was an American semiconductor manufacturer which specialized in analog devices and subsystems, formerly with headquarters in Santa Clara, California. The company produced power management integrated circuits, display dr ...
. In 1984 Crockford joined
Lucasfilm
Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC is an American film and television production company and a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, which is a business segment of The Walt Disney Company. The studio is best known for creating and producing the '' Star Wars'' and ...
, and later
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...
. He became known on video game oriented
listserv
The term Listserv (styled by the registered trademark licensee, L-Soft International, Inc., as LISTSERV) has been used to refer to electronic mailing list software applications in general, but is more properly applied to a few early instances o ...
s in the early 1990s after he posted his
memoir "The Expurgation of Maniac Mansion" to a videogaming bulletin board. The memoir documented his efforts to censor the computer game ''
Maniac Mansion'' to
Nintendo
is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles.
Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade playing cards ...
's satisfaction so that they could release it as a cartridge, and Crockford's mounting frustrations as Nintendo's demands became more obscure and confusing.
[The Expurgation of Maniac Mansion: A Memoir by Douglas Crockford]
/ref>
Together with Randy Farmer and Chip Morningstar, Crockford founded Electric Communities and was its CEO from 1994 to 1995. He was involved in the development of the programming language E.
Crockford was the founder of State Software (also known as Veil Networks) and its CTO from 2001 to 2002.
During his time at State Software, Crockford popularized the JSON
JSON (JavaScript Object Notation, pronounced ; also ) is an open standard file format and data interchange format that uses human-readable text to store and transmit data objects consisting of attribute–value pairs and arrays (or other se ...
data format, based upon existing JavaScript
JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior, of ...
language constructs, as a lightweight alternative to XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...
. He obtained the domain name
A domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. As ...
json.org in 2002, and put up his description of the format there. In July 2006, he specified the format officially, as RFC 4627.
He worked at Yahoo
Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo! Inc. (2017–present), Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds ma ...
for many years.
Opinions on Javascript
In 2008 Crockford published a book announcing his discovery that Javascript
JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior, of ...
, contrary to prevailing opinion, has good parts. He describes this as "heresy", and as "possibly the first important discovery of the 21st century", noting that it came as a "great surprise to the community of javascript developers, and to the world at large." He attributes the discovery to his having read th
ECMAScript Standard
which he says "literally changed my life." He also notes that the specification document is of "extremely poor quality", "hard to read", "hard to understand", and says that the ECMA and the TC39 committee "should be deeply embarrassed".
Software license for "Good, not Evil"
In 2002, in reference to President George Bush's war on "evildoers", Crockford started releasing his JSMin software under a customized open source MIT License
The MIT License is a permissive free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1980s. As a permissive license, it puts only very limited restriction on reuse and has, therefore, high license comp ...
, with the added the requirement that "The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil". This clause was carried over to JSMin-PHP, a variation of JSMin by Ryan Grove. This software was hosted on Google Code until December 2009 when, due to the additional clause, Google determined that the license was not compliant with the definition of free and open source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized so ...
software, which does not permit any restriction on how software may be used. JSMin-PHP was forced to migrate to a new hosting provider. According to the GNU project
The GNU Project () is a free software, mass collaboration project announced by Richard Stallman on September 27, 1983. Its goal is to give computer users freedom and control in their use of their computers and computing devices by collabor ...
, the licence conflicts with Freedom 0 of the Free Software definition
The Free Software Definition written by Richard Stallman and published by the Free Software Foundation (FSF), defines free software as being software that ensures that the end users have freedom in using, studying, sharing and modifying that so ...
, and although "it may be unenforceable, we cannot presume that", therefore non-free.
Crockford's license has caused problems for some open source projects who mistook the license for an open source variant of the MIT license. Affected open source developers have asked Crockford to change the license, but he has continued to use it. He has, however, granted "
IBM, its customers, partners, and minions" permission "to use JSLint for evil", a solution which appeared to satisfy IBM's lawyers.
In media
Books
* Crockford is listed in the acknowledgements of the 1995 hardcover edition of '' The Diamond Age'', by Neal Stephenson
Neal Town Stephenson (born October 31, 1959) is an American writer known for his works of speculative fiction. His novels have been categorized as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, postcyberpunk, and baroque.
Stephenson's work e ...
as ''Douglas (Carl Hollywood) Crockford''.
Bibliography
*
*
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crockford, Douglas
Living people
American computer programmers
Atari people
Web developers
San Francisco State University alumni
People associated with JavaScript
Lucasfilm people
PayPal people
Year of birth missing (living people)