I feel the same way about the history of the Web. There are hundreds of browsers we can be using, each one with its own unique features, advantages, and dare I say, beauty. Really writing for ANY browser shows you why things are the way they are today, and helps you not reinvent Unix, poorly :D
Let's Not Dumb Down the History of Computer Science (2014)
61–70 of 171 posts
Re: Let's Not Dumb Down the History of Computer Science (2014)
#62Unlike Medicine, many of the ideas that we had in the past were better than the commonly accepted way things are done now. Capability based security, for example was something that allowed you to run any program, with no danger to your system. It's not part of any common OS. They had it at Xerox PARC, but Steve Jobs chose not to take that part. On the other hand, the PARC focus on replicating paper was a step backwar…
Could you name a few examples of ideas we missed? You made me quite curious.
Re: Let's Not Dumb Down the History of Computer Science (2014)
#63Unlike Medicine, many of the ideas that we had in the past were better than the commonly accepted way things are done now. Capability based security, for example was something that allowed you to run any program, with no danger to your system. It's not part of any common OS. They had it at Xerox PARC, but Steve Jobs chose not to take that part. On the other hand, the PARC focus on replicating paper was a step backwar…
How do you go about digging old PARC papers?
Re: Let's Not Dumb Down the History of Computer Science (2014)
#64As a computer science graduate student, I am always surprised by how rarely my peers seem to know or care about the history of our field. I doubt many of them would write papers about computer science history even if the incentives were better. I think it is somehow related to the power of computer science to change the human condition. Everyone is thinking about the future. Mathematicians also crave novelty, but I d…
I like history but how is history going to get me a functional game released or land a job interview? I don't need to know about DARPA to create a wordpress page or a C# Windows Service...
> how is history going to land me a job interview
Step 1. Go to software conference.
Step 2. Get into hallway track conversation where a historical anecdote and its lessons are relevant.
Step 3. Say things that prompt y'all to have insight and establish trust that you're thoughtful about how to build software.
Re: Let's Not Dumb Down the History of Computer Science (2014)
#65Unlike Medicine, many of the ideas that we had in the past were better than the commonly accepted way things are done now. Capability based security, for example was something that allowed you to run any program, with no danger to your system. It's not part of any common OS. They had it at Xerox PARC, but Steve Jobs chose not to take that part. On the other hand, the PARC focus on replicating paper was a step backwar…
I think the same problems are present in medicine. For example, there's tons of evidence that fasting and rest can heal most things.
It's talked about in just about every tribal knowledge compendium. It's assisted by doctors in some countries, almost completely ignored in others.
Re: Let's Not Dumb Down the History of Computer Science (2014)
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like history but how is history going to get me a functional game released or land a job interview? I don't need to know about DARPA to create a wordpress page or a C# Windows Service...
> how is history going to land me a job interview Step 1. Go to software conference. Step 2. Get into hallway track conversation where a historical anecdote and its lessons are relevant. Step 3. Say things that prompt y'all to have insight and establish trust that you're thoughtful about how to build software.
> Step 1. Show 10+ years of experience
> Step 2. Never talk about history because I don't need history to solve business problems with programming
> Step 3. Make 6 figures.
So again... 99% of programmers won't ever use the history of DARPA and the birth of the internet to land a job.
Re: Let's Not Dumb Down the History of Computer Science (2014)
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like history but how is history going to get me a functional game released or land a job interview? I don't need to know about DARPA to create a wordpress page or a C# Windows Service...
The GP is talking about (future) researchers in particular. Still, there’s a tremendous historical myopia among practicing software engineers as well, leading us as a field to reinvent old ideas in new clothes every ten years or so.
Researchers might have more use for history... but day to day, in the field, programmers? not so much. I would think it's the difference between math researchers and accountants... You don't need to know history to balance a check book.
Re: Let's Not Dumb Down the History of Computer Science (2014)
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
The optimization bottleneck you're fighting against in the game might have been solved 50 years ago, if you don't know history, you don't have a complete toolkit of all the good tools. There are good reasons to learn assembler, basic, forth, lisp, smalltalk, pascal, c, c++, python, java, etc. even if you don't use them on a regular basis.
I don't need history to know algorithms... so "that was solved 50 years ago" doesn't teach me how to build a balanced node tree or actually matter if I simply know to use sort library method A instead of B. > good reasons to learn Of course... but none of that needs HISTORY to use effectively. Knowing functional programing, procedural, async, etc, etc, etc... I can know all of that without needing to know history. On…
The disdain for history as an expression of you not knowing how to code wordpress is strange considering that, as you allude to, you don't know the latter.
You may want to think whether learning wordpress is the same with learning history of html at decade level.
Since you're publicly exposing your thoughts, let me tell you that what you are doing is expressing your ignorance and being proud of it. You may want to drop the second part.
Re: Let's Not Dumb Down the History of Computer Science (2014)
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
> how is history going to land me a job interview Step 1. Go to software conference. Step 2. Get into hallway track conversation where a historical anecdote and its lessons are relevant. Step 3. Say things that prompt y'all to have insight and establish trust that you're thoughtful about how to build software.
> Step 1. Show 10+ years of experience > Step 2. Never talk about history because I don't need history to solve business problems with programming > Step 3. Make 6 figures. An anecdotal example made up about talking at some conference with big words won't provide business value and isn't useful in day to day problem solving. So again... 99% of programmers won't ever use the history of DARPA and the birth of the inter…
This thread is about computer science, not specifically programming.
Re: Let's Not Dumb Down the History of Computer Science (2014)
#70In 2021, we're having difficulties to surface even the history of computing and canonical documentation of the last two decades or so. Go search anything about early HTML, early JavaScript, research results in CompSci not even ten years old, POSIX reference docs, or even up-to-date JVM javadoc pages using your favorite search engine. It'll bring up all kinds of content marketing, naive march-of-progress advertising fringe tech and PLs addressed at juniors, hit-and-miss StackOverflow articles, and masses of academic pseudo science publications with original content/sites being decommissioned in favor of shiny content-less "web 2.0" crap.
Fuck the algorithm!