I know Salvatore by his nickname (antirez) from 1999-2004 when I was studying in Milan. I knew him as the author of 'hping'. IIRC his nickname featured in some 's0ftproject' articles. Didn't really had a clue that he was the author of Redis! That's impressive, really. I use reds with Sidekiq to run a-sync, background tasks in my Sinatra applications.

I happen to have a mother from Sicily and an entire family there. What Salvatore has achieved is astonishing. There are skilled people in Sicily, but almost all of them leave for a better place due to lack of labour, big corps, good universities and the Mafia which is a VERY real problem in south part of Italy.

That said, the food, the sea and the sight-scenes in Sicily are unbelievably beautiful. Especially the night view of the "stretto di Messina" (the string of sea that separates Sicily) in the summer. Taormina is also mesmerising.