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Hall of Fame Voting For Computer Museum of America

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the eat-the-rich dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Public voting has opened for the Computer Museum of America Hall of Fame, which is looking to add 5 more members to the roster via a public vote. Previous inductees include Sid Meier (of Civilization fame), and among this years list of nominees is Linus himself. The full list, along with the voting area itself is over at HomeLAN."

9 of 304 comments (clear)

  1. William Gibson? by tsunamifirestorm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sorry if this sounds like flamebait, but the other people invented acutal products while all he did was "Coined the phrase "cyberspace" in the novel "Neuromancer" (1984)"

    1. Re:William Gibson? by rsborg · · Score: 5, Insightful
      He's considered by many to be one of the pioneers of cyberpunk, and Neuromancer certainly did help popularise the genre. And that definitely is something.

      Well, Gibson may have popularized it, but Philip K Dick "wrote the book(s)", as it were... and he's nowhere on the list.

      Honestly, I don't see either of them, as belonging on this list, as they're just meme-creators. People like Vint Cerf, Ken Thompson, and Dan Briklin actually created the infrastructure or killer apps that make what we're doing today possible. Kudos to the real mccoys, I say.

      --
      Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
  2. Why aren't these people already in? by cynicalmoose · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The really shocking thing is the people who aren't already there!

    John von Neumann - considering he started off the base design for the logic interaction systems we use today, he is often known as the father of computing - so why are we voting for him now?

    Linus Torvalds - I don't need to say who he is - but why isn't he there either.

    Those are two particularly egregious omissions, but I reckon more than 5 need to get added.

    --
    Exercise your right not to vote. thinkoutside.org
  3. No Fred Brooks? by beavis88 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Mythical Man-Month" anyone? Father of modern software project management (although admittedly, this may be a dubious honor)? I mean I guess it's great that Larry Ellison is up there and all, but I'd prefer to see actual computer scientists on the list as opposed to "business people".

    1. Re:No Fred Brooks? by southpolesammy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Actually, Brooks ought to be recognized for his No Silver Bullet article from the 80's as it provided a very large foundation for what we know as software engineering, but the mythical man-month is notable as well.

      Either way, you're right -- he should be listed here, and especially instead of business folks. Brooks was a true Computer Scientist, whereas Ellison and others simply commercialized computing.

      --
      Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
  4. Linus Himself? by dknight · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Let me start out saying that I love Linux. I use it only nearly all of my boxes at home, and reccomend it whenever it is reasonable to do so.

    Having said that, is it just me, or are we coming frighteningly close to deifying Linus? I mean, he did a great, amazing, generally wonderful thing... but come on people. Does he deserve to get in to the hall of fame? Absolutely. Does he deserve his own religion? Probably not.

  5. What the Hell? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There are some people on this list who should be in way before anyone like Sid Meier should ever have been considered. Konrad Zuse, John von Neumann, Ken Thompson, Bjarne Stroustroup and Linus Torvalds were my picks. Without Neumann, who knows when we would have had general purpose computers. Just about everything I have ever learned about computer architecture is traced back to Neumann. This is sort of like inducting Duran Duran into the Rock and Roll hall of fame before Buddy Holly. Zuse had one of the earliest functional electromechanical computers running. Meier, or some of this years nominees, the guy that founded C|Net, Paul Allen, John Warnack, etc. indeed! lol

  6. Missing / Embarrassing / Stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I need to rant on this.

    Perhaps I misunderstand the point of the site - is it to promote major manufacturers? Then what is Turing doing up there?

    Is it to promote scientists? Then what the hell is Gates doing up there?

    People missing from the list:

    Donald Knuth, Richard Stevens, Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson, Claude Shannon, Von Neumann

    And if you look at the dates, Gates got inducted in 1998, Turing in 2000. Doesn't this strike anyone as mildly....no...scratch that blatantly stupid and obsequious? If a museum of computer use of human civilization honors "innovators" like Michael Dell before Turing and Babbage, then it is run by a bunch of industry sycophants, and, in actually, represents rather well the sad state of affairs in the computer world.

  7. Missing nominees by mabu · · Score: 4, Insightful
    • Monte Davidoff - co-author (along with Gates and Allen) of Microsoft/Altair BASIC

    • Richard Stallman - Pioneer of open software movement/GNU

    • Niklaus Wirth - PARC researcher responsible for Algol, Pascal, Modula-2, Laser Printers, and more

    • Marvin Minsky - Built the first neural net AI in 1951

    • Seymour Papert - Developer of LOGO and another AI pioneer

    • Tommy Flowers - Built one of the earliest electronic computers, with the practical application of codebreaking during WWII

    • Donald Knuth - Regarded by many as the "Father of Computer Science".

    • Edsger Wybe Dijkstra - The guy leading the way to abolish the GOTO statement is surely a hall-of-famer!

    • Konrad Zuse - Another early computer pioneer that due to politics and circumstances beyond his control was never able to be fully-recognized.

    • Jeff Raskin - Creator of the Macintosh and pioneer in computer-human interfaces.