Richard Ristow: I usually drink coffee—two good-sized mugs. I like the taste, so it is sort of comfort food. I do get the well-known paradoxical calming effect of stimulants—I concentrate better.

King Douglas: At what hour of the day do you do your best work?

Richard Ristow: A lot of it is very deep in the night. Partly because at that point I am so far off schedule that instead of thinking about schedule and what I should be doing, I say, “what’s the most interesting think I can do now?”

King Douglas: At what time of day do you prefer to tackle difficult programming challenges?

Richard Ristow: Anywhere from mid-afternoon on. If I’m good, I’ll take a look at them in the morning, have some of the pondering in between. If a program's giving me trouble, I can often clarify it by reading a listing in bed, just before going to sleep, and marking anything I see.

King Douglas: What are your sleeping habits?

Richard Ristow: I’m a real night owl.

King Douglas: Do you have a daily routine?

Richard Ristow: I basically do not, or it’s not very much of a routine. I do not like a day without breakfast, even if it turns out to be around noon. I make a kind of oatmeal that takes two hours to cook.

King Douglas: Are you disciplined in your approach to work? Describe your approach to organizing your time and getting things accomplished.

Richard Ristow: I’m not. I actually do my best work when I almost accept non-discipline, give up on schedule, and let the aesthetics of the problem come through: when I stop thinking how important it is to get this job done and start thinking about how interesting it is to do this job.

King Douglas: Do you like to have quiet while problem solving, or do you prefer to listen to music or something else other than silence?

Richard Ristow: I can’t do it unless I have quiet. If something else is there, it will get my attention. No music. Once, on a very stressful job, I put the morning classical-music program on the radio, in hopes that it would relax me. It did; I felt a lot better. I just didn't get anything done.

King Douglas: Do you participate in sports or exercise? If yes, describe.

Richard Ristow: The only thing I do is walk. I love to walk, alone or with the dog. You meet several times as many people to chat with when you are walking the dog. You can speak to a perfect stranger if you have a dog, or if they do.

King Douglas: What is your earliest experience with computers?

Richard Ristow: I was a sophomore in college. I took a research assistantship with the Naval Research lab in the radio astronomy group and they had an IBM 1620 computer—a very small machine. The FORTRAN compiler was on cards. I have a born affinity for computing machinery. I asked for a slide rule for Christmas when I was in the eighth grade.

King Douglas: Say you have creatively solved a particularly difficult problem, with even a flash of brilliance. Whom do you tell?

Richard Ristow: It’s very hard to find somebody to tell. Partly it’s a mid-western thing. If you’ve done something well, you’re not supposed to talk about it much. If I have done something really well I will often print it out and read it over several times and say, “That was good. I’m glad I did that.”

King Douglas: Do you have friends who are skilled in SPSS or have other computer/programming skills?

Richard Ristow: Not lots and lots. One.

King Douglas: What were your thoughts when I asked you to participate in this project?

Richard Ristow: I was pleased as Punch. One of things I’m looking forward to is hearing about the other guys. These are people I respect, I’ve interacted with, and know hardly at all.

King Douglas: What advice do you have for the participants at the SPSS Users Conference?

Richard Ristow: There is order in every chaos, if you look with humor and imagination, and without fear.