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Tim Berners-Lee wins Turing Award

news.mit.edu

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Re: Tim Berners-Lee wins Turing Award

#251

Post by chubot »

noblethrasher wrote: post #191
chubot wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always felt that Tim Berners-Lee was not respected enough in both the computer science and programming communities. I felt it especially after working for over a decade at Google, which literally built its entire business on TBL's architectural concepts. For example, Google and other search engines would not work without the principle of least power [1], which a lot of people, including Alan Kay [2], somehow don't…

I don't want to detract from TBL's accomplishments, especially on this occasion but, he didn't solve the hypertext problem insomuch as he decided that the really hard things like provenance and bidirectional linkages weren't important. Google and Facebook did solve those problems, but only for commercial benefit. Moreover, it's clear that TBL regrets that early decision to the degree that he rails against the walled…

But that's exactly what I disagree with. Design is as much about what to leave out as what to include.

Leaving out those things wasn't an accident or ignorance as Alan Kay claims. There were a lot of very conscious design decisions involved in the web -- again see "Weaving the Web".

He may regret that the web has evolved into walled gardens, but what could he have possibly have done about it? There's to prevent that decades in advance, at least not without strangling it from birth.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee wins Turing Award

#252

Post by flukus »

michalskop wrote: post #215
nojvek wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never quite figured out how sirs work. I know Knights were addressed with sirs and the Queen had something to do with it, but how does it work in a multicultural UK?

I've never understood why people (particularly outside UK) care about some "sirs" at all. "Mr. Tim Berners-Lee" sounds just fine to me.

Because it's a nice way to recognize some distinguised people, that's why people care about sirs.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee wins Turing Award

#253

Post by flukus »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #231
chrisseaton wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why use a title at all if you're going to use the wrong one?

He's still a mister. It's whether you buy in to "this is a male adult" vs. "I must respect this person's title because HM The Queen bestowed it on them". Mr Berners-Lee surely won't feel offended because the person addressing him isn't a [UK] royalist?

Knighthood isn't a royalist issue. Australia has knighthoods bestowed by the prime minister. Unfortunately our PM decided to knight Prince Charles...

Re: Tim Berners-Lee wins Turing Award

#255

Post by Retra »

Cyph0n wrote: post #224
aanm1988 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd take the money. You can't take either with you and with a billion dollars I could get more than a few things named after me.

Things which will likely all be forgotten. Name 10 billionaires from the 19th century. Now try naming 10 scientists. Go with the Turing Award if you want to be remembered.

Everything will be forgotten. The only question is "when".

Re: Tim Berners-Lee wins Turing Award

#256

Post by Godel_unicode »

flukus wrote: post #250
XJOKOLAT wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, of course. It's possible I'm still pining for my perfectly set-up Google Reader account which I cannot quite replicate. That still hurts! RSS felt ubiquitous (to me) back then. Anyway, to the point, try using RSS with facebook in the above context. I hate being locked in - hence I gave up on FB. It's trash to me until it solves this issue.

> Anyway, to the point, try using RSS with facebook in the above context. For me they're different things. RSS is for things that I want available until I get around to reading them or until I manually mark them as read, this is precisely what I don't want out of facebook.

I suspect parent was talking about the distributed nature of it. Subscribe to whoever you want, allow anyone to subscribe to you.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee wins Turing Award

#257

Post by noblethrasher »

chubot wrote: post #251
noblethrasher wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to detract from TBL's accomplishments, especially on this occasion but, he didn't solve the hypertext problem insomuch as he decided that the really hard things like provenance and bidirectional linkages weren't important. Google and Facebook did solve those problems, but only for commercial benefit. Moreover, it's clear that TBL regrets that early decision to the degree that he rails against the walled…

But that's exactly what I disagree with. Design is as much about what to leave out as what to include. Leaving out those things wasn't an accident or ignorance as Alan Kay claims. There were a lot of very conscious design decisions involved in the web -- again see "Weaving the Web". He may regret that the web has evolved into walled gardens, but what could he have possibly have done about it? There's to prevent that…

I don't think that you and I are in disagreement about the TBL’s design competence: I stated that his decision to set aside the problem of provenance that preoccupied other hypertext research was intentional.

But, your argument is perilously close to begging the question that the success of web is a good thing. Now, I happen to think that the web is a net good (no pun intended), because (among other things) it helped break Microsoft’s hegemony and continues to force OS vendors to provide and support a standard universal computing platform (albeit a crippled one). But, it’s also arguable that the success of the web may have set personal computing back by a few decades, while also exacerbating a bunch of other problems like wealth inequality and reduced privacy/sovereignty, because it turned the Internet into a big modem.

I’ll take a look at Weaving the Web; thank you for the recommendation. To you, I commend Jaron Lanier’s Who Owns the Future.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee wins Turing Award

#258

Post by Godel_unicode »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #231
chrisseaton wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why use a title at all if you're going to use the wrong one?

He's still a mister. It's whether you buy in to "this is a male adult" vs. "I must respect this person's title because HM The Queen bestowed it on them". Mr Berners-Lee surely won't feel offended because the person addressing him isn't a [UK] royalist?

Do you similarly never refer to people as Doctor, Reverend, Minister, or Coach so-and-so? It's part of his name. If Sir Tim didn't want to be knighted, I feel confident he wouldn't have been. You'll note that his wikipedia page calls him Sir Tim, and I feel confident he could change it if he so chose.

You are clearly free to call him whatever you want, but I would advise you to be honest enough to realize that you're projecting your feelings about royalists onto him, and not calling him what he has chosen to be called.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee wins Turing Award

#259

Post by Cyph0n »

Retra wrote: post #255
Cyph0n wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things which will likely all be forgotten. Name 10 billionaires from the 19th century. Now try naming 10 scientists. Go with the Turing Award if you want to be remembered.

Everything will be forgotten. The only question is "when".

Well, I'd argue that (for example) Warren Buffet will be forgotten long before the invention of the transistor will.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee wins Turing Award

#260

Post by Godel_unicode »

nindalf wrote: post #104
cjbprime wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I'm following you -- yes, the Queen knighted him. How does the multicultural part come in? (Women receive the same award but it's called a Damehood and their prefix is Dame.)

If Kazuo Ishiguro is knighted, should he be addressed as Sir Kazuo or Sir Ishiguro? The point being that people of Japanese descent might place their first names after their last names.

It's fortunate, then, that it's Sir GivenName, not Sir FirstName.
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