Bob,
I really appreciate all the effort you've
put into keeping this list running for so long, as well as keeping its
tone light and bright.
It's interesting to compare it with the
Foundations of Mathematics (FOM) list, which early on tended to be
dominated by Harvey Friedman, who started it in 1997. Harvey was later
joined by Steve Simpson, who rather dogmatically
did not suffer category theory gladly, to the point of driving Sol
Feferman to shout Basta! before quitting the list.
Shades of the similarly dogmatic Universal
Algebra and Category Theory conference co-organized by Ralph McKenzie
and Saunders Mac Lane and held at MSRI, Berkeley in July 1993. The
opening welcome was given by MSRI director Bill
Thurston, who in mid-welcome admitted that the opposite of a morphism
made him feel ill! An inaudible gasp from fully half the audience
echoed round the room.
When Martin Davis took over FOM's
administration, true to form he kept it sharply focused, arguably a
little too much sometimes. Eventually Martin passed his job on to Sam
Buss, who has been running it more in your more forgiving
style, with much the same view as you as to when it was time to bring a
thread to an end.
May the reigning dogmas and cats live long, and maybe even prosper!
Cheers from Up Over,
Vaughan Pratt