Ben Collins-Sussman is an American software engineer, composer, and author. [1] He is the co-creator of the Subversion version control system, co-composer of the musicals Eastland [2] and Winesburg, Ohio, [3] and co-author of two books on software and management. [4] [5] He co-created two interactive fiction games, Rover's Day Out and Hoosegow. [6] Collins-Sussman lives and works in Chicago, Illinois. [7]
Collins-Sussman is one of the founding software engineers of the Subversion version control system, [8] which was used by 36.9% of developers in the 2015 Stack Overflow Developer Survey. [9] Collins-Sussman co-founded the Google Chicago engineering office in 2005, [7] which employed more than 300 engineers as of 2019. [1] He was a senior engineering manager leading a team focused on the latency of Google's search engine. [1]
Collins-Sussman is the co-author of the book Version Control with Subversion along with C. Michael Pilato and Brian Fitzpatrick, published by O'Reilly Media in 2009. [5] Collins-Sussman and Fitzpatrick co-authored Debugging Teams: Better Productivity through Collaboration, [10] about managing software development teams, published by O'Reilly Media in 2015. [4]
In collaboration with Andre Pluess, Collins-Sussman co-composed the music for two musicals, Eastland and Winesburg, Ohio. [11] [12]
Eastland is a musical telling the story of a 1915 disaster in which the passenger ship SS Eastland capsized while moored in the Chicago River, killing 844 people. [2] The musical opened in June 2012 and ran for 9 weeks. [11] It was produced by the Tony Award-winning Lookingglass Theatre Company and was nominated for four Joseph Jefferson awards. [11]
Time magazine reviewer Richard Zoglin wrote that "the elegiac mood, a sense of hard-working, turn-of-the-century Americans betrayed by the American dream, is heightened by the somber, folk-ballad flavor of the music — much of it played (on guitars and violins mostly) onstage by members of the cast." [2] The Chicago Tribune arts reviewer Chris Jones wrote, "Pluess and [Collins-Sussman] are richly talented songwriters [...] whose rootsy melodies understand the musical language of the ordinary Midwesterner." [13] The Chicago Time Out reviewer, Oliver Sava, wrote that the score "evokes O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Ragtime, though the lyrics can get heavy-handed." [14]
Winesburg, Ohio is a musical adaptation of Sherwood Anderson's novel of the same name about a small American town. [15] It was developed by Chicago's About Face Theatre and Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and produced at Steppenwolf Theatre, Arden Theatre, and Kansas City Repertory Theatre. [12] The Arden Theatre production won five Barrymore Awards for Excellence in Theater in 2005. [12]
Chicago Tribune arts reporter Chris Jones wrote that "one is most struck by the beauty of the vocal music that Pluess and Collins-Sussman] have woven into Anderson's poignant prose." [15] Chicago Reader reviewer Justin Hayford said that "composers Andre Pluess and Ben [Collins-Sussman] create a haunting anthem revealing the town's inner life. It's a stirring opening, intricate in its dark shadings." [3]
Collins-Sussman co-created the interactive fiction title Rover's Day Out with Jack Welch, which in 2009 won the 15th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition, judged by the readership of the Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.int-fiction. [6] Games reviewer Jimmy Maher described it as "an impressively intricate, multi-layered piece of fiction." [6] Welch and Collins-Sussman also co-authored Hoosegow, which won the Casual Gameplay Design Competition #7 by influential game review website [16] Jay Is Games in 2010. [17]
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