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Can The eXperimental Computing Club Survive?
Logic Bomb writes: "Salon has an article about the famous Berkely eXperimental Computing Club, from whence came GTK, the GIMP, early web browsers, and many other goodies. The article has a nice overview of the club's history, as well as questions about its continued existence. Apparently the rise of collaboration over the Internet has made it much harder to find recruits."
for some reason, this article reminded me a lot of the death of traditionaal one phone line bbses. i ran one for about three years in the early nineties, until the web cam down and crushed all of us. how did it happen? the same way that the xcf is dying.
its okay to be a geek now.
the people who wanted to kick my ass in high school are all on the web. bored housewives are hunting for tracks on napster. grandkids are sending email back and forth to their grandparents. and you don't have to go to some basement room full of unix workstations to talk about computer stuff any more.
it's a bit odd, but try sitting in a diner during the breakfast hour some time and not hearing a conversation about computers. and it's not just the geeks like us, its forklift drivers and waitresses and everyone else. places like the xcf (and like bbses, which is why i was reminded), were refuges for people who were into computing. now everyone is, to at least a slight degree. why bother having a refuge any more? there's nothing left to drive people in.
--saint----
I don't know anything about XCC, but maybe I can shed a little light on the issue by telling you what's going on at my own university, up here in Canada.
Currently, at Carleton University, there exists a club with a similar purpose called Nexus. It was intended as a student-run research group, whereby students could gain access to the equipment they needed for certain projects, and have a better way of finding other people to join teams to work on said projects.
It's in danger of dying out this year.
What's killing it? I would suggest that it's the computer science department itself. In the last few years, the faculty of the computer science school at Carleton University has increased the workload of students exponentially. At the current state, we have the following "killer" courses, to weed out people who can't program:
204 - C++, the profs require you to use Visual C++, with the intent of forcing you to recognize all of the little things that are wrong with Microsoft's compiler. (Their words, not mine.) One of the killer assignments includes mixing operator overloading, templates, and exceptions. This is turning into a really frustrating course for a lot of people, because it's supposed to be an intro to C++ course. It's turning into a fight-the-compiler course.
304 - Object Oriented Software Engineering. You are forced to use ObjecTime, which is the most crash-prone, unuseable, finicky, flaky CASE tool I have ever seen. This is also a group work class, which only compounds the problems for a lot of people. Generally, the class is very beneficial, but with the amount of work and spare time it takes, and the required use of ObjecTime it definitely qualifies as killer.
384 - Algorithms. I agree that this should be a "killer" course. But there is a lot that isn't taught in this course that should be, simply because we're TESTED on it afterwards. They use the CLR book, too, which means that a lot of your own questions are never answered by the book, as there is no solution guide available to students. (And the authors don't want this to change.)
484 - Algorithms II. This is the course that's supposed to be THE killer. And from what I've heard, it is. (I'm only in third year right now.)
In addition to these required, core courses, we're also required to take several other courses in third year and above. Our options can be considered killer, too, as some of them (307, which is a Scheme/Prolog course, and requires as one assignment that you reimplement scheme within scheme; 302, a compiler course that I've also heard was a real time consumer) are just plain insane. Especially whenever you consider that each of these students is potentially taking a full course load, involving at least four other courses. (I've heard many a story of a student dropping all of their other courses just so they could get one of the above-mentioned courses enough of their time.)
It really doesn't help that we've got some really really crappy TAs at times. I've had friends in 204, Intro to C++, show me assignments they've gotten back with "WOULD NOT COMPILE" written on it. The reasoning of the TAs was as follows; I put the disk in the drive, I opened the project, and I hit compile. It stopped compiling, so it mustn't work. (In this case, it was because the TAs were compiling it on the disk. Visual C++ requires a good 10 megs swap space to compile anything, after all.) I really pity the people handing in this last assignment, which is the above-mentioned killer assignment for that course. The only TA is flying back to China as soon as he's finished marking them, so students will have absolutely no recourse if it doesn't run. (The new C++ prof absolutely refuses to remark assignments.)
(Part of the problem, I think, is that a lot of the staff is just plain bad at teaching. The currently reigning C++ prof has a fetish for overloading every single operator. Last year's operating systems prof didn't know how to use fork() or IPC. Students have to make up for their profs' bad teaching by learning the material on their own time, which only makes things worse.)
This is what's killing the computer science societies at Carleton. There are no longer people with free time available to volunteer to run the offices of Nexus. There are rumors circulating already about more general services like CCSS shutting down, and the problem's only going to get worse. With CCSS and Nexus, it's becoming the case where the only people who actually have the time to run the services are first-year people. And now we're starting to find that we can't even attract their help. (Recent graduates are not allowed to help, thanks to some rather bizarre restrictions on clubs and societies, so this is what we're stuck with.)
If this keeps up, we really are going to lose all of our societies.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The article and many posts mention internet based collaboration as the main replacement for groups like the XCF.
Are there any groups online that are more than a simple sourceforge project and mailing list? Do any such groups for development exist online?
I don't entirely agree. I learned things by RTFM and figuring stuff out and I have seen people who had their hands held. Many of them expect it all their lives. It may seem a little harsh, but I think that any difficult task simply requires the personal effort to learn it. Once you learn a certain amount then it all falls into place. I have encountered my share of elite responses to my questions, and I try to be polite when someone is trying to take my time to comprehend basic things. Maybe this is elitist to some, but I don't think it is a good use of my time to explain the 'cp' command to someone.
-- Solaris Central - http://w
Once you learn a certain amount then it all falls into place.
Maybe this is elitist to some, but I don't think it is a good use of my time to explain the 'cp' command to someone.
Then how, pray tell, is a user supposed to learn a certain amount about Linux/BSD/whatever if teaching them how to use the 'cp' command is a waste of time? I assure you, if it's a waste of time to explain the 'cp' command to someone, then the odds of that person saying 'screw it' and going back over to Windows are painfully high.
Just out of curiosity, though, I decided to 'RTFM' for the cp command. My cp manpage contained a few of the following snippets:
-
SYNOPSIS
... target_directory
- This option also causes symbolic links to be copied, rather than followed, and special files to be created, rather than being copied as normal files.
- Created directories have the same mode as the corresponding source directory, unmodified by the process's umask.
- If the source file has its set-user-ID bit on and the user ID cannot be preserved, the set-user-ID bit is not preserved in the copy's permissions. If the source file has its set-group-ID bit on and the group ID cannot be preserved, the set-group-ID bit is not preserved in the copy's permissions. If the source file has both its set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits on, and either the user ID or group ID cannot be preserved, neither the set-user-ID nor set-group-ID bits are preserved in the copy's permissions.
- In the second synopsis form, target_directory must exist unless there is only one named source_file which is a directory and the -R flag is specified.
- If the destination file does not exist, the mode of the source file is used as modified by the file mode creation mask (umask, see csh(1)).
- Symbolic links are always followed unless the -R flag is set, in which case symbolic links are not followed, by default. The -H or -L flags (in conjunction with the -R flag) cause symbolic links to be followed as described above. The -H, -L and -P options are ignored unless the -R option is specified. In addition, these options override each other and the command's actions are determined by the last one specified.
Walk in the park, no?cp [-R [-H | -L | -P]] [-fip] source_file target_file
cp [-R [-H | -L | -P]] [-fip] source_file
If users who want to switch to Linux are told to Read The Fine Manual for the "simple" things like cp, bash, and grep, then to come back later with "real" questions, they'll give up before they begin.
If anything, the people who always need their hands held are the ones that ceaselessly pester you about mid- to high-level. Newbies learn amazingly fast if given a reasonable amount of person-to-person attention and good guidance; there are few things as satisfying as watching a nervous first-time student grow to really enjoy themselves and get all gung-ho about what you've been teaching them. If you won't help those without a clue get started with some real, patient, human interaction, then odds are they'll go back to Windows and write the whole Linux scene off as an eletist geek haven. And, truth be told, if newbies are directed more often than not to RTFM, then that's exactly what the Linux scene is.
$ man reality
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
It would be a shame to say the club is dying. In the traditional sence yes, but as was said it is due to collaboration over the internet. So instead of saying the club and it's purpose is dying, let's say anyone can be a member now, if not of the club of it's purpose.
As x approaches total apathy I couldn't care less.
Now though, I find that there are not nearly as many computing clubs to be found, at least where I live. Has the Internet sounded the death knell for computer clubs?
It would seem that old-fashioned face-to-face contact is somehow becoming unfashionable. The Internet does not provide an adequate replacement for physical socialising. I also suspect that the quality of work that gets done over the internet is of an inferior quality. This is to be expected though, given the lack of acceptable criticism that the Internet engenders. Criticism is usually dismissed as 'flaming' and is ignored. In real life such behaviour would be more muted, and would be responded to.
Hopefully, one day, people will realise that the Internet is not a panacea for all of societys Ills, and is not a replacement for society. I hope to see the rise of computer clubs again one day.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
Localized groups of people with above average expertise (or willing to work to learn the above average expertise) can have a strong advantage over an equally sized distributed Open Source project. Being able to walk down a hall or spin your chair 180 degrees and bounce ideas back and forth is a very powerful winnowing tool. The entrance requirements to the XCF help to maintain a high caliber of members (propose a major project).
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
It is not a reflection on the XCF's current membership, but it is important to understand that the XCF was created by destroying a public (to the student body at least) free student-run computing facility, the Undergraduate Computing Facility. The equipment and space was essentially given to XCF in the belief that they would continue the UCF, but instead the founders created a private facility for themselves.
As a result, for more than a year, there was no public access computing for undergraduates, and it took a long time and a lot of work to rebuild what XCF co-opted, eventually in the form of UC Berkeley's Open Computing Facility.
Over the past fifteen years, some significant software was written at XCF, especially after they started releasing source code. And, certainly, eliminting the "Exclusive Computing Facility", as we called it, rather than just making it more open, would not have helped anyone. However, there is no doubt in my mind that for a school as big as Berkeley with such a long history of system software development, that more and better development would have been done had XCF been a more open facility from the outset, and it would have defined the campus programming community in a much more postive way.
By now, surely, none of the current XCF members had anything to do with its bloody founding, fifteen years ago. There has been public computing at Cal for a long time (at least as of the last time I checked), and multitasking computers are ubiquitous. So, the significance of the XCF to me now is only symbolic. However, as an alumnus, I would somehow feel better about about Cal to see the experimental computing club reconstituted into something that does not claim to be the legacy of the founding of the XCF. The current members do not deserve the dishonor of that association.
You might be interested in the book (and website) Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, which addresses at least some of your concerns regarding the need for "physical socialising."
There is an article by the author of the book, Robert Putnam, here: Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital.
There is an interview with the author here: An interview with Robert Putnam about America's collapsing civic life.
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
I believe that the problems with recruitment are not due to collaboration between people over the Internet, or even to freshman coming in with a hacker support community already formed on the net. The bigger issue is that being a geek is not such a socially unacceptable flaw anymore, especially around MIT.
Two things used to drive people to the SIPB: Access to good hardware and people with whom to geek. Both of these encouragements are starting to slip away. And the social barrier to entering SIPB has always been high, due in large part to elitism among its members and the perception of elitism by the community.
10 years ago undergraduates couldn't run Unix in their dorm room, or even have networking. If they wanted to hack they had to come to SIPB. The machines in the office used to be a big draw. That is not so anymore. Unix workstations that we can afford are comparable to freshman's new Intel machine. Our fastest workstations are rivalled by my $800 Linux box. And providing even faster machines would not really help. I don't need an Ultra60 to hack on.
The draw of people to geek with is still strong though. That is what keeps me and others coming back to the SIPB office. Between current members and the cruft (members who are no longer students) who hang around there is an alarmingly high density of real world computer experience. Its a great place to go to have people tell you your new design is crap or your idea for a company will fail. But more and more students never feel that attraction, never feel the need to hang out with other geeks.
In some way this is because of the net, and the fact that these students come in with support networks. But even more than that it is the omniprecense of geeks at MIT. People who need their fix of geeky social interaction in real space can usually get it in their living group. The odds are there are a couple of people who run Linux and understand when you talk about your projects. They aren't very useful when it comes to critique, but you can get expertise online. People who would have become SIPB addicts^Wmembers in the past now get by on geek methadone, amply available in their current social groups.
Its a difficult problem to solve. I don't have a solution, or I would have deployed it at MIT. Sometimes we think that people don't know about us. We have talked about Slashdot (a common brand of methadone) banner ads targetted to net-18. But really the problem is harder than telling people we exist. It is to convince people that our membering process is worth the time and effort, and that we are a social group they want to join.
We are not dying. We do not have significantly fewer members then we have had in the past. But people no longer seek us out. Many of our members finally get over their inneria and join when their existing social scene flies apart. Others (like me) get dragged in by people in their living group and eventually get members by virtue of having sat around the office so much. But this year we didn't get any freshman. They don't realize that they need us, yet.
Computer clubs, computing clubs in particular are a strange breed. Many are groups of guys that like platform A, or hardware B (of which this loyality is now non-existant... the TI-99/4a club,the TRS-80 club, the Apple club .... etc.. now except for apples, everything is a mutt of hardware, no one manufacturer and no one basic design.) Now we have OS clubs.. (Although I have never seen a windows club.... go figure!) Linux, OS/2, BSD,BeOS,BlobX....etc... but the whole "scene" of the club is always the same... a core of talented people, a hub of wannabe's (which are good, teach them!) and the group of users/wanna run everything's. You know, they guys that want to run it like a meeting, take minutes, rehash the last meeting, etc... bla bla bla... Now the techies, we hate this crap, the users? they hate the techies.... we want to to cool things, they want to advertise.... etc.... it goes on.
The internet has given the techie communication to a larger group of techies, this way we can avoid the administrative users. But who loses? the wannabees. Who is going to teach 12 year old Johhny down the street how to write a device driver? Who is going to help 13 year old Susie debug her assembly routenes? all the techies are on the net. and if you ask a newbie question in the "leet rooms" you get flamed,and then kick/banned. RTFM is our cry. it is our mantra... and we act suprised or superior when their mantra is "A**HOLE" or we hear "Damn Geeks, think they are better than us."
It's because we cause it. Us techies, we drive away the newbies. we chase away the wannabees. because we like our discussions about the obscure corners of IPv6 and will not stoop to helping someone use vi for the first time.
We ruined the clubs. and we are thinning the pool of talent by acting like jerks.
Want to fix it? then be a mentor to someone. next time someone asks a newbie question ANSWER IT and flame the self leet idiot that flamed the newbie. welcome wannabees with open arms .
It's simple, but alas, it will never happen. It is counter to geek culture.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.