211–220 of 308 posts
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To strenghten GPs point a bit: There are courses on conceptual art (1966-72) or minimal art alone. One "History of Computing" course, while appreciated, is not doing its history enough justice.
To be fair, the history of computing is only ~200 years old even if you go back to Babbage and Lovelace. The history of art is literally as old as recorded history.
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The history of art or philosophy spans millenia. The effective history of computing spans a lifetime or three. There's no sense comparing the two. In the year 2500 it might make sense to be disappointed that people don't compare current computational practices with things done in 2100 or even 1970, but right now, to call what we have "history" does a disservice to the broad meaning of that term. Another issue: art an…
> The effective history of computing spans a lifetime or three. That argument actually strengthens the original point: Even though it's been that short, youngsters often still don't have a clue.
But the rhyme and reason for who is known is not at all obvious. Outside of "who is getting marketed."
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The history of art or philosophy spans millenia. The effective history of computing spans a lifetime or three. There's no sense comparing the two. In the year 2500 it might make sense to be disappointed that people don't compare current computational practices with things done in 2100 or even 1970, but right now, to call what we have "history" does a disservice to the broad meaning of that term. Another issue: art an…
> The effective history of computing spans a lifetime or three. That argument actually strengthens the original point: Even though it's been that short, youngsters often still don't have a clue.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The effective history of computing spans a lifetime or three. That argument actually strengthens the original point: Even though it's been that short, youngsters often still don't have a clue.
This is just "old person yelling at cloud" territory, though? People often don't know the actors, singers, authors, inventors, whatever from the last few generations. They know the current generation and maybe some originals. But the rhyme and reason for who is known is not at all obvious. Outside of "who is getting marketed."
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I recall seeing a project on github with a comment: Q: "Sooo... what does this do that Ansible doesn't?" A: "I've never heard of Ansible until now." Lots of people think they are the first to come across some concept or need. Like every generation when they listen to songs with references to drugs and sex.
Come on music is very much cross generational? I think software engineering have so many social problems to a level that other fields just don't have. Dogmatism, superstition, toxicity ... you name it.
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The history of art or philosophy spans millenia. The effective history of computing spans a lifetime or three. There's no sense comparing the two. In the year 2500 it might make sense to be disappointed that people don't compare current computational practices with things done in 2100 or even 1970, but right now, to call what we have "history" does a disservice to the broad meaning of that term. Another issue: art an…
If Alan Kay doesn't respond directly to this comment, what is Hacker News even for ? :) You're not wrong about history, but that only strengthens Kay's case. E.g., our gazillion-times better physical substrate should have led an array of hotshot devs to write web apps that run circles around GraIL[1] by 2025. (Note the modeless GUI interaction.) Well, guess what? Such a thing definitely doesn't exist. And that can on…
The easy example I used to use to really blow people's minds on what was possible was Mathematica.
That is to say, it isn't so much lack of knowledge of history. It is lack of knowledge of the present. And a seeming unwillingness to want to pay for some things from a lot of folks.
Each class would "just" study a hackernews thread in depth.
> CSCI 3300: Classical Software Studies Alan Kay, my favorite curmudgeon, spent decades trying to remind us we keep reinventing concepts that were worked out in the late 70s and he’s disappointed we’ve been running in circles ever since. He’s still disappointed because very few programmers are ever introduced to the history of computer science in the way that artists study the history of art or philosophers the histo…
I spent my teens explaining to my mum that main memory (which used to be 'core', she interjected) was now RAM, a record was now a row, a thin client was now a browser, PF keys were now just function keys. And then from this basis I watched Windows Forms and .NET and all the iterations of the JDK and the early churn of non-standardized JavaScript all float by, and thought, 'hmm.'
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This is just "old person yelling at cloud" territory, though? People often don't know the actors, singers, authors, inventors, whatever from the last few generations. They know the current generation and maybe some originals. But the rhyme and reason for who is known is not at all obvious. Outside of "who is getting marketed."
The man on the street may not know this history, but serious actors, singers, authors, and inventors themselves certainly know what came before them. If not, they are presumably not actually that interested in their own vocation (which is also normal, by the way).
I will agree that the "greats" seem to tend to know all of this. Such that I think I'm agreeing with your parenthetical there. But most practitioners?