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Let's Not Dumb Down the History of Computer Science (2014)

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Re: Let's Not Dumb Down the History of Computer Science (2014)

#81

Post by jussij »

wernercd wrote: post #49
fooker wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

History is not just about time — what happened when. An equally important part is the ordering and the reasons something happened. You can know how to write simple programs in all paradigms, but fail to understand what to use when. You might have memorized a long list of algorithms but not understand the trade-offs involved in choosing one. Of course history is not the only way to understand this, but it is definitel…

Well like I said... I enjoy history. but. I've never used history to solve business problems. They are related and good to know... but I don't need to know history to flip burgers, run a business or plan my next sprint. I'm not arguing history is unimportant or good to know or even possibly useful just to have ideas of what to do - or what not to do... I'm just arguing it's importance is over-emphasized.

> I've never used history to solve business problems.

As Knuth was trying to point out, history should be more than tables and time lines.

It should provide details of how important advances where made and how solutions to big problems where found.

And the reason being, since those historical details aren't being recorded, it's more than likely you are in fact solving business problems today using the same techniques discovered in the past, you just don't know it.

Re: Let's Not Dumb Down the History of Computer Science (2014)

#82

Post by andi999 »

Sharlin wrote: post #32
wernercd wrote: post #23

Earlier 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.

So what? Sometimes ideas have to be reinvented, maybe this time they succeed. There could be two reasons why old ideas (talking about Software here) didnt succeed, one is Hardware wasnt capeable, the other is 'they didnt cross the chasm' - both might be different now (third option, the idea is bad, then one shouldnt do it again of course).

Re: Let's Not Dumb Down the History of Computer Science (2014)

#83

Post by andi999 »

tremon wrote: post #76
andi999 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The limitation of a single desktop was put in place to allow children to ease into the desktop metaphor." Any source for this? I dont thinkchildren were the target customers at that time.

They didn't mean literal children I guess, but "children" in the sense of blank-slate individuals exploring a new space. Adults can use training wheels too when first learning to ride a bike. But once they're competent, it's more expressive to ride without.

I agree. But I am wondering, I remember linux had a lot of multiple Desktops, but somehow this fad never stuck. So maybe one Desktop was somehow a good idea?

Re: Let's Not Dumb Down the History of Computer Science (2014)

#84

Post by juliendorra »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #70

In 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 f…

that’s probably where the methodology used by trained historians is useful.

I created a History of Tech Design class [0] of 6 different tracks for design students. I’m not an historian, but I have some training in finding original sources, sorting them, accessing archives… it helped a lot, and I could use a lot of primary sources full of not-well-known details.

Back in the 90s it would have taken me weeks or months to just access this amount of historical material!

I had to turn this class into something accessible and interesting for design students / pros, but I certainly do not consider that dumbing down, just: Know your audience!

[0] https://workflowy.com/s/strate-history-of-te/a4ID6kKtznLwQC7...

Re: Let's Not Dumb Down the History of Computer Science (2014)

#85

Post by gnud »

svat wrote: post #24

To be clear about the "(2014)", although Knuth gave this talk in 2014, this transcript of the talk is from the upcoming (February 2021) issue of Communications of the ACM. The whole sequence of articles/talks is interesting: - (2007, Martin Campbell-Kelly), "The History of the History of Software" (DOI: 10.1109/MAHC.2007.4407444 ) — the trigger for what follows. - (2014, Donald Knuth): "Let's Not Dumb Down the Histor…

Wow, "Fermat's library" is horrible to read in.

Luckily, the raw PDF is available at http://public.callutheran.edu/~reinhart/CSC521/Week3/KnuthVo...

Re: Let's Not Dumb Down the History of Computer Science (2014)

#86

Post by juliendorra »

wernercd wrote: post #23
blt wrote: post #10

As 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...

I won’t try to give a list of examples of how historical knowledge is useful for a developer, but just compare this statement with different fields:

An architect will learn about the history of hundreds of buildings at school.

A product designer like a designer designing chairs, knows about the history of chairs, has dozens of example of chairs in their mind.

That developers strive to be so a-historical is a sad state of affairs. It makes the whole field naive and stuck in a perpetual present.

But digital art and web design are in the same mode too, so it’s something about the whole digital fields.

The only exception is game design, where it’s considered important and valued to learn about old games, play them, understand how they worked.

Re: Let's Not Dumb Down the History of Computer Science (2014)

#89

Post by chrisseaton »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #70

In 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 f…

What do you think is the difference between 'research results in CompSci not even ten years old' and 'academic pseudo science publications'?

Do you just disagree with the research of the last ten years for some reason so dismiss it as not the real research and think there's some kind of under-appreciated research out there?

Re: Let's Not Dumb Down the History of Computer Science (2014)

#90

Post by nickdothutton »

Knuth writes eloquently what I have thought for a while. Some of these early works and ideas, even and perhaps especially those that did not evolve into something successful today, are worthy of study. I strongly suspect some of them could take us in new directions. Some of those that “blocked” may now be unblocked by related developments in our field. Maybe we have to go back to forwards.

https://blog.eutopian.io/the-next-big-thing-go-back-to-the-f...

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