Kent Beck

Creator of Extreme Programming and TDD. Founder of TRI.

The Cultural Questionnaire.

What’s your favorite line from a movie?

‘My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.’ It’s just so straightforward—he declares his name, what he’s going to do, and why. Plus Mandy Pantinkin’s delivery is amazing.

Which movie do you love but would be embarrassed to talk about in a serious, intellectual conversation?

Speed Racer. It’s visually (over) stimulating. It taps into my childhood emotions. And there are cool explosions.

The tune of the moment?

Thomas Tallis, The Lamentations of Jeremiah. It’s a gentle sea of sound that transports me elsewhere.

Name a museum where you’d be happy to be locked in for the night?

Zurich’s Kunsthaus, in the Monet room.

The three books you’d take with you for a very, very, very long 100% environmentally friendly trip overseas?

Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building.

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings.

Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince.

I’ve read each one many times, which I can’t say for many books.

You can give two “cultural items” (be it a book, a painting, a movie, a record or anything else), one to the person you like the most, one to the person that bores you the most. What would these two items be?

I would give my wife an Amish quilt (she’s the person I like the most). I’d give a copy of AC/DC’s Back in Black to any number of people I know who I think could use a kick in the pants.

What painting would you steal if you could magically become invisible for a few hours?

Camille Pissarro, The Hermitage at Pontoise. The scene is superficially bland but I’m still discovering curious details after years of having a print up in my house. The way the little girl clinging to her mother’s skirts is both physically and emotionally portrayed in half a dozen tiny smudges of paint stuns me.

Which artist, alive or not, in any given field, would you love to party with for a wild, wild night?

I’m not much of a wild partyer, but I’d love to have a long conversation with J. S. Bach. He was such a towering genius surrounded by such rigid constraints.

Filed In: Web Building

May 20, 2011 at 8:00 am