A whole academic field has grownup around the idea of "design methods" — and I have been hailed as one of the leading exponents of these so-called design methods. I am very sorry, that this has happened, and want to state, publicly, that I reject the whole idea of design methods as a subject of study, since I think it is absurd to separate the study of designing from the practice of design. In fact, people who study design methods without also practicing design are almost always frustrated designers who have no sap in them, who have lost, or never had, the urge to shape things.
Christopher Alexander, Notes on the Synthesis of Form.

Teaching

Course Notes

You can download course notes for this and previous courses that I have taught.

Research

Programming Languages

I have designed several simple programming languages. None has made the daily news, but a couple have attracted a small but dedicated fan club. While working at EMS, I developed a macro-based language for electronic music synthesis. Later, in 1979, I revised it for general purpose use, renamed it Mouse, and published a description in the now defunct BYTE magazine. Thanks to a small band of devotees, Mouse lives on!

In the early 80s, I designed BIAS, an acronym for Bias Is Almost Scheme, for teaching functional programming. No documents survive.

Around 1990, curious about the object-oriented paradigm, I designed an OOOP called Dee.

I am currently designing yet another programming language with my old friend, Brian Shearing.

Artificial Life

I'm interested in Artificial Life and have several students working on various aspects of it. Visit the Concordia Computational Intelligence Laboratory.

Graphics

I'm interested graphics, too, and have designed and taught several graphics courses in the past. Several of my students are working on projects related to graphics or with a graphics component. I've written some simple example programs to help beginners and also a small graphics library. Both are intended for use with OpenGL.

Interests

My first visual interests developed in cinephotography, but later I found that plain old photography was more feasible, starting with film and progressing to digital.

A 1950s radio program by Tristram Cary (1925-2008) triggered my interest in electronic music. I worked for Peter Zinovieff at Electronic Music Studios during 1969-73. Nowadays, I listen mostly to older instruments that rely on wood, felt, catgut, horsehair, and similar materials.

I enjoy a few frames of snooker from time to time, but I do not play very well (highest break: 40).

Background

People sometimes ask me how I got my family name. Unlike some people, I cannot trace my name back very far but, for the curious, I have put together a family page and an illustrated biography.

How to get an A

A good start would be to write something like this:

Dr. Peter Grogono is our very lovable professor at Concordia University. Everybody in computer science and software engineering loves him (even those who have never actually taken one of his classes) because he is like the icon of how real geeks should be: humorous, practical, knowledgeable in the geek issues, smart, and being able to make fun of your own kind.       SwordAngel, 2006.01.26.

Naturally, you would also have to endure one of my tedious courses (SwordAngel hasn't, as far as I know) and get very good marks.

Prospective Graduate Students

I am currently supervising several graduate students at both magisterial and doctoral levels. I cannot accept any new students. Moreover, I am past retirement age and it is therefore unlikely that I will be able to accept new students in the future.

In the past, I have tried to reply to interesting requests for supervision. But I am now receiving several such requests every day! Consequently, I will no longer reply to any messages asking me to take you on as a student.

Montreal