Author of the "Programming Pearls" column in the Communications of the ACM, which was the source of several outstanding books:
Member of technical staff at BellLabs. mailto:jlb@research.bell-labs.com (out of date)
One of my favorite "Programming Pearls" was that on LittleLanguages [Jon Bentley, Little languages, Communications of the ACM, 29(8):711 -- 21, August 1986. http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=315691]
- Does he have a website? (Both of these are 404, Nov 2014)
- He's listed on http://www.research.avayalabs.com/PeopleY/people_a_to_eY.html, ~~but I don't see a home page.~~
- Here's his Avaya page: http://www.avaya.com/usa/avaya-labs/people/jon-bentleyresearch-scientist
In the appendix to the first edition of Programming Pearls, he gives out ten pieces of engineering advice:
- Work on the right problem.
- Explore the design space of solutions.
- Look at the data.
- Use the back of the envelope.
- Exploit symmetry.
- Design with components.
- Build prototypes.
- Make trade-offs when you have to.
- Keep it simple.
- Strive for elegance.