Wayne Davison
Encyclopedia
Wayne Davison is a noted programmer
and musician
, born on 14 December in the US state of California
.
Davison's first well-known project was trn, a Usenet
newsreader
based on Larry Wall
's rn
.
During this time Davison created the unified context diff (modifying GNU diff
and patch
), which allowed patches for open-source software
packages to be smaller and easier to read.
Other open-source software projects he has either maintained or helped to maintain include screen
, patch
, rsync
(current maintainer), zsh, pop-before-smtp (current maintainer), and rbmake (current maintainer).
Programmer
A programmer, computer programmer or coder is someone who writes computer software. The term computer programmer can refer to a specialist in one area of computer programming or to a generalist who writes code for many kinds of software. One who practices or professes a formal approach to...
and musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
, born on 14 December in the US state of California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
.
Davison's first well-known project was trn, a Usenet
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
newsreader
News client
A newsreader is an application program that reads articles on Usenet . Newsreaders act as clients which connect to a news server, via the Network News Transfer Protocol , to download articles and post new articles...
based on Larry Wall
Larry Wall
Larry Wall is a programmer and author, most widely known for his creation of the Perl programming language in 1987.-Education:Wall earned his bachelor's degree from Seattle Pacific University in 1976....
's rn
Rn (newsreader)
rn is a news client written by Larry Wall and originally released in 1984. It was one of the first newsreaders to take full advantage of character-addressable CRT terminals...
.
During this time Davison created the unified context diff (modifying GNU diff
Diff
In computing, diff is a file comparison utility that outputs the differences between two files. It is typically used to show the changes between one version of a file and a former version of the same file. Diff displays the changes made per line for text files. Modern implementations also...
and patch
Patch (Unix)
patch is a Unix program that updates text files according to instructions contained in a separate file, called a patch file. The patch file is a text file that consists of a list of differences and is produced by running the related diff program with the original and updated file as arguments...
), which allowed patches for open-source software
Open-source software
Open-source software is computer software that is available in source code form: the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, improve and at times also to distribute the software.Open...
packages to be smaller and easier to read.
Other open-source software projects he has either maintained or helped to maintain include screen
GNU Screen
GNU Screen is a software application that can be used to multiplex several virtual consoles, allowing a user to access multiple separate terminal sessions inside a single terminal window or remote terminal session...
, patch
Patch (Unix)
patch is a Unix program that updates text files according to instructions contained in a separate file, called a patch file. The patch file is a text file that consists of a list of differences and is produced by running the related diff program with the original and updated file as arguments...
, rsync
Rsync
rsync is a software application and network protocol for Unix-like and Windows systems which synchronizes files and directories from one location to another while minimizing data transfer using delta encoding when appropriate. An important feature of rsync not found in most similar...
(current maintainer), zsh, pop-before-smtp (current maintainer), and rbmake (current maintainer).