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HP Fires Father of OOP
An anonymous reader writes "Wow. Hewlett-Packard has disbanded its Advanced Software Research team and sent its leader, reknowned programmer Alan Kay, packing. From today's Good Morning Silicon Valley: 'HP is bidding adieu to legendary Silicon Valley technologist Alan Kay. A founder of Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center, Kay -- who once said, "The best way to predict the future is to invent it" -- was instrumental in the development of the windowing GUI and modern object-oriented programming. He envisioned a laptop computer long before the first ones rolled out and his Smalltalk programming language was a predecessor to Sun Microsystems' Java. Hard to believe HP's cutting him loose.' Maybe Apple will hire him."
People wonder why no one is going into CS anymore.
HP Invent ---- Isn't that hard without inventors ?
This is my opinion based on what little I know and understand of the rumors and lies Thanks, Randal
Especially appropriate, now that the mother of "Oops!" is out of the picture.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Looks like Hurd is turning HP into a lean machine to be as focused on products and price as Dell currently is.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
I wouldn't be surprised if HP Execs got wind of him wanting to resign, so they beat him to it. This would save HP from an embarassing loss (someone jumping ship) and make it look like they were just "cleaning house."
"Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
I predict that Google announces that they hired him in a week.
Maybe Alan Kay'll be lucky, and Carly Fiorini will hire him for wherever she's going to be CEO next!
I hear she's a wiz at turning companies around!
Oh wait....
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Reminds me of the "Bad Idea Jeans" SNL commercial
the HP bio on Alan Kay
"but money is the God of Algiers & Mahomet their prophet." - Rich. O'Bryen June 8th 1786
Bidding ware anyone?
"I invented the term Object-Oriented, and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind."
- Alan Kay
I don't know if this is a true quotation, or is apocryphal, but it's good enough to throw around at random.
I'm sure Mr. Kay will not have any problem finding a job, should he so desire one. Regardless, I wish him the best of luck.
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
www.fogbound.net
Kay is the kind of people that have too much ideas and not enough time to research or implement all of them (in a good sense of course). That means he's got potential ideas lined up waiting for some CPU cycles to become available. You give him carte blanche over a talented team and he create amazing stuff. I'd be the ideal person to build an "Internet Plateform", whatever it is. I can tell what exists today is not "it" and barely registers as functional in his mind. I'd be surprised if he doesn't end at Google.
Just because he was a promiment innovator many years ago doesn't imply he is just as innovative now. It's a possibility that HP is letting him go because he isn't innovating or contributing on par with other researchers.
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
I just hope development on Croquet doesn't stall now, otherwise us cyberspace-lusting techno-hopefuls will just have to wait for the inevitable (but still hopefully far-off) day where you can open Word documents and Excel spreadsheets from inside World of Warcraft.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...is the antithesis of the Java B&D philosophy. It's an aggressively dynamically typed language, and is much more of a precursor to Python or Ruby than Java.
rage, rage against the dying of the light
That is why the Squeak license still mentions Apple
There are some excellent videos on archive.org of Alan Kay explaining some of the early GUI projects (including Xerox and the early laptop "prototype") http://www.archive.org/details/AlanKeyD1987 http://www.archive.org/details/AlanKeyD1987_2
HP doesn't need innovators like Kay. HP is totally into innovating new ways to make money off of printer consumables, and that isn't an expertise that Kay brings to the table.
HP's downfall started to happen as soon as they started selling tons of LaserJet printers.
From there, HP seemed to take a little break and brought nothing new to market. Instead of making great new products, they kept on milking the same printer lines until they got old, crusty, and expensive to operate. They tried to do the same thing with their PC line. They unloaded or failed to focus on their other product lines.
I haven't bought an HP product in years. My ex-girlfriend bought an HP inkjet printer, but it failed quickly and the consumables were ridiculously expensive. It just didn't seem like an HP quality product to me.
So HP fired Alan Kay? That's good for Alan. Because who wants to work for an ink-n-toner company?
On that basis, the rest of us still haven't caught up with him! Things like GUIs, portable computers, wireless networking, and the web are all steps towards the future he envisioned. But that future is still a long ways away.
I'll post instead of mod, but I think that /. should nix the HP logo. The entity known as "HP" is currently undeserving of any relation to the Hewlett-Packard legacy of computing, innovation, research, precision devices, calculators!, and, yes, printers. "HP" is really just a printer company now. Change the /. icon to a LaserJet or something, but "Hewlett-Packard" it's not. Okay, I have more b33r to drink...
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
Looks like Hurd is turning HP into a lean machine to be as focused on products and price as Dell currently is.
Sigh...Dell does what it does pretty well, but they are definitely not a company known for much imagination or innovation. They generally follow after someone else has blazed the path, a strategy that must fail once all of the true innovators have been eliminated. We don't really need any more Dells. If HP becomes just like Dell, then why should I buy from them? I might as well buy from Dell.
HP can still succeed, but they need to do so by being HP. Efficiency is good, but not at the expense of the good things that make HP stand out from the crowd and create future opportunities. I think farmers say that you shouldn't eat the seed corn.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
I had a close friend who worked for HP about a year ago. He was shocked at how inefficient everything was run, and how they participated in a lot of unprofitable (and wasteful) activities. His biggest comment was that their slogan should be "HP Rebrand", since that's all they do. There hasn't been any significant advancements or innovations made, nor any large pushes to making useful discoveries.
I store my recipes online (the way nature intended)
Actually, what they meant to say was "HP Invest." Just one letter. Simple mistake, really.
Actually actually, I think it meant to say "HP Invert", as in Rectal-Cranial Inversion, which is what HP has collectively accomplished with moves like this.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Layoff 15,000 Employees, shut down user group, now firing key persons in R&D.....even the dumbest employee could tell what's in their CEO Carly's mind - cutting as much cost as possible, create a artificial short-term profit hype, so that she can retreat with huge severance package for her 'accomplishment'; but what'd that leave HP? A living hell of disolation, without any competitive edge to continue their business as usual.
How could the board approve of her action which is obviously doing nothing more than achieving her own personal goal while damaging the company as a whole? Unless, of course, the major investors who back Carly approve of this. I cannot tell for sure, but that's very possible - the major investors believe that HP is doomed.
i can understand that it's really too trivial to have mentioned in his Bio intro, but Alan Kay also won some minor award recently -- think it's called the TURING AWARD. i can't imagine why anyone would want to employ such a slacker. http://internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/33425 11/
-craig
Harry Potter fires the father of the Order Of the Phoenix? Wha?
...
OH.
If you open yourself to the foo, You and foo become one.
HP laid off 15k workers, but is currently heavily recruiting engineers in India and China. Just take a look at the Job section on hp.com.
HP has obviously abandoned the USA and it's time we abandon this dying company.
Actually, what they meant to say was "HP Invest." Just one letter. Simple mistake, really.
Actually actually, I think it meant to say "HP Invert", as in Rectal-Cranial Inversion, which is what HP has collectively accomplished with moves like this.
Fact: they meant to say "HP Invect" -- that is, to issue invective.
Examples:
"Fuck you, losers -- we're better off without you!"
And:
"HP Rules! U-S-A-!! U-S-A-!!," etc.
-kgj
-kgj
Yea you know me
"I am a kernel in the linux army"
I am thinking this notion of corporation, needs to go away. Make every business a sing propriatary whatever.. the people running the business need to have some sort of responsibility. The way corporations are now no one is responsible for anything anymore. If a corporation ends up doing something evil in the name of profit (which it will if it the reward is worth the risk, b/c a corporation as an entity has no conscience no purpose other than acrue wealth) there is no one to hold accountable (with the rara exception).
Who's up for amending the US constitution?
Bill Gates scooped up the VMS team. My bet is that BG is already on site and trying hard to pick up these folks.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I wish however is in control these days would spin off the "real hp" into a company unto its own
Already done several years ago. It's called Agilent.
SirWired
Mostly what it means is that HP obviously doesn't have any long term vision anymore, and are probably very much on the way out.
About seven years ago I was a sub-sub-contractor working on a project for HP. A minor style issue came up on the documents I was formatting style sheets for: should there be a hyphen here or not? When I asked my contact at HP, he said: "I'll have to ask the committee about that."
I thought: This company is doomed!
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
Dell doesn't do anything creative. They buy cheap parts and build cheap computers with them on a large scale. They have thinner margins than some competitors, but they make it up in volume and crappy support. It's not like their prices are particularly low or anything (unless they have a good combination of rebates, which can only be redeemed using small claims court).
Nothing particularly creative, it's a very straightforward and unimaginative approach that is mainly successful due to the general lack of innovation in the computer industry.
I'm assuming this is a troll.
I'm going to make that assumption, because the only other option is too depressing.
Unless you'd like a future where everything is basically owned and run--to a far greater extent than it already is--by a very small number of tremendously rich individuals, corporations are a good thing. This is because very few people actually have the resources by themselves to bankroll significant and long-lasting ventures: scientific, industrial, or otherwise.
To do big things, like build factories, operate supertankers, run airlines, you need a lot of money. Much more than any one sane person would be willing to put up. This is why corporations exist: they allow people to pool their resources, while mitigating risk. Without the shelter from liability that corporations offer, no one would invest in them. Without the great pools of capital that corporations provide, a whole lot of things that we enjoy and make life more enjoyable would disappear.
Maybe you want to live in a world without corporations, but count me out of it.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I don't find this hard to believe at all. HP's not in the blue-sky R&D business, and hasn't been for many years now.
What I don't get, is why he ever went to HP in the first place.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Not really, it's just an economy of scale.
The only hard part about it is "bootstrapping" an operation that big, once you have it running it's cake: you can dictate pricing terms to your parts suppliers (because you're so big, you can bankrupt them by canceling your orders), have everything manufactured overseas where labor is cheap, play your distributers against each other to keep their percentage minimal, and maintain your market share by undercutting any possible competition (which, not being as big as you, can't compete with your price).
Let's face it: Dell is the Wal-Mart of PCs. They're really good at what they do, but at the end of the day you need to step back and ask yourself 'is what they're doing really any good?'
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
OOP there it is.
OOP there it is....
OOP
OOP
Kay as already been at Apple
But Sculley's gone, and Apple's current management is much more interested in productivity than prestige.
Alan Kay should be an academic.
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
A corporation is essentially an artificial entity that cannot exist without government fiat. It's the modern day version of a chartered company. What makes a corporation legally different from a private business is that the former is a legal "person". The results on the actual owners of the corporation (shareholders) being totally absolved of responsibility for the actions of the corporation. Their share price may plummet if the company does something stupid, but they themselves are not personally responsible for their property.
That's the legal aspect of corporations, and justification enough to get rid of them. But it also introduces a subtler monkeywrench into the economy: encouraging stock ownership as an investment, which severely dilutes company ownership. There are so many owners, millions in many cases, that it's impossible for the owners to exercise control, even if they wanted to. So they elect a board of directors instead, who hires executives to actually run it.
All in all, corporations are unnatural entities. But the fix is easy, and doesn't need a new constitutional ammendment. Just rescind the current laws of incorporation. But don't expect it anytime soon. Like copyright and patents, incorporation is too useful of a fiction to abolish. You'll be fought tooth and nail from every side. Who are you going to go to for legal assistance, some non-profit corporation?
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
I know this won't be a popular sentiment, but I think it's worth writing, so here goes...
You want to get into computer science? Look what happens to a winner of the Turing Award. Computer science, programming, and just about anything related to computers is now passe. It's no longer a book of spells from which you cast great power. It is a hack-n-slash battle of attrition. "Just get it done" is the new methodology. R&D is old school.
Everyone wants to launch in against HP or the corporation in general for this, but this doesn't surprise me. Guys like Kay are better suited in academia anyways.
OOPs.
HP's not in the blue-sky R&D business, and hasn't been for many years now.
Not true at all. I worked for HP Labs last summer in their Information Dynamics Lab. Much of the research that this group, and others that I'm personally aware of, does is of a distinctly speculative nature and doesn't directly lead to a product. This is fine by HP, because pure research generally pays off in one way or another in the long run.
Corporate blue-sky R&D doesn't generally make the papers until it's no longer blue-sky, i.e., just because you don't see it happening doesn't mean it's not there. If you want to know who's doing research, try reading the scientific literature instead, .
We had a printout posted in side isles and so on that took the corporate logo and placed "integrate" under it. An apt description. I knew months ago that Hurd was talking about cutting a lot of "unnecessary" research. In imaging and printing, we were pretty insulated from most of the turmoil during and after the Compaq merger. However, even we were ultimately not immune as consumable revenue decreased, the core laser business matured, and "underperforming" businesses (that is, something not #1 or #2 in its market) sucked money from growth areas. Another problem was some management with no long-term vision: "Yes! let's invest here. . . no, wait! That costs more money than we thought!" Planning and commitment were lacking before the so-called transformation, and maybe still are. So, how are you supposed to get to even #2? That and the incredibly stupid idea of combining printing and PCs. Vyomesh Joshi is actually a good leader who shoots strait and doesn't dance around hard questions; the imaging and printing organization as a separate company would do quite well. At least Carly was booted. Hurd is doing what he has to, and it's not easy (not that it makes it any nicer for those that are getting the axe). I think there will be plenty of post layoff survivor syndrome there for a while.
I'm sorry, I sound bitter. I'm not though, HP was fairly sensitive and generous to those of us that chose to leave on our own accord. I'm glad I did. There's just sadly nothing about HP anymore that makes it better to work for than anywhere else, and there once was. It has become, even at the printing level, an integrator of other technologies rather than a source. Thus the dissolution of this and other research groups will continue. Hurd wants to bring R&D "closer to the customer." I also doubt that severance packages will ever be that generous again. I found a good job in a completely different industry, and I wish HP the best of luck. Wow, that was therapeutic.
By the way, if you have not read it, check out the article that pissed off VJ. I don't know how they did it, but Business Week nailed it almost 100%.
Spoken like someone who is afraid to tackle my arguments head on. I have been outside of this country. And you have not rebutted a single thing I said.
Go visit North Korea, Cuba, or one of the former Soviet states and then tell me how the environment looks over there. If you think "corporations" make you weep... all I can is, you need to get out more.
Hmm.... so the only other solution than capitalism is communism, huh? You are a tool. Did you read anything that I wrote? I'm aiming for what is beyond capitalism - the next step. Communism is clearly a failure (and was never implemented fully anyway). Both systems are bad for the environment, and both are repressive - communism is just more obviously repressive. Capitalism is much more subtle and insidious, but it at least allows for greater freedom.
If you've finished attacking me, you might want to consider some possible alternatives; something that hasn't been done before. I think the answer is largely political. If we used a direct democracy approach, with a firm structure for protecting minority opinion we'd see a less oppressive system, methinks. We could vote on laws, rather than voting on greedy politicians who vote on laws for us (or 'for themselves', more accurately). I think it's time we progressed beyond greed as a motivating factor, since it is so obviously divisive. But if you think capitalism is the pinnacle of human endeavor, please tell me why.
Electric Monkey Pants
Wasn't OO invented in northern europe the mid 60's in the Simula language by a guy named something like Nygaard?
Table-ized A.I.
Especially when HP is a company that's now about selling commodity hardware, the entire PC industry is about commodity hardware.
They dont need some self-proclaimed visionary to sit around and philosophize without contributing anything tangible to the bottom line and probably demand some ridiculous salary.
Investors and other employees who WORK all day would probably see this as a good thing for the company.
Geeks should look at this news and learn an important lesson. Your employment is based on what you can do for the company, and more to the point, how you can make money for the company.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I've worked on two applications (whose names I won't mention. Oh all right, GFDM [Global Financial Data Model] and LoanIQ) which were composed of about 750 objects [GFDM] and 450 objects mapped onto 750 objects [LoandIQ, they didn't understand about objects with states!])
:-)
The interesting thing is that these databases represented about 1,200 relationships between these objects. (Note the difference in scale. There were two to three times as many relationships as there were objects. And they NEVER understood what they were dealing with. Relationships and extremely simple to implement, but you have to see that that bricks and mortar [the objects] do not a wall make [the relationships].)
Now, how do you visualize 750 objects at once?
It certainly doesn't fit on a flat sheet of paper. ERWin just doesn't cut it.
You have to use 3D (I did it with VRML) then topologically sort the objects and the relationships and then array the whole thing on the 'surface' of nested spheres. (The 'depth' of the sphere depends on the relationships that are being followed. GFDM was eight levels deep. 'Real world' objects were modeled on the outermost sphere.)
Each object was linked to a page describing the object and the lines represented the relationships and were linked to a page describing the relationships.
I was really PROUD of coming up with the visualization scheme and with the grunt work I had to do to come up with the bizzare quaternion math for arraying the objects on the nested spheres and for aligning the relationships.
The relationships were conceptually easier, (though if I had prettied them up to follow traces and arcs it would have been a test of the 4-colour map theorem.
3D enabled me to be the ONLY person to understand ALL of the objects and their relationships. I had ALL the meta-data available at the click of my mouse.
This could have been extended to have interfaces to manipulate (edit) the objects and the relationships themselves.
I did none of this for the 'cool' factor, but because it was the only possible way to handle that much meta-data.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Smalltalk didn't catch on, not due to problems with dynamic typing, or the language itself, but mostly because of lack of availability.
The PC was a huge success despite being inferior to Macs at the time, mostly due to the closed nature of Apple. Developers weren't able to create software or hardware without paying royalties. Often the price increase was passed on to the consumer, and software packages were noticeably more expensive than their PC counterparts. PCs developed a swelling shareware and BBS culture, and soon overtook the Mac.
This is much the same situation as what happened with smalltalk.
I'm sure anyone who has ever used a smalltalk system can hardly deny its simplicity, and elegance, compared to that of C++ or even Java. The problem really existed in the fact that smalltalk wasn't available cheaply. It was heavily controlled by Xerox, and compilers for it tended to be far too expensive for novice programmers, or startup companies, to afford.
Sun released Java out to the public, and supported it documentation-wise. It allowed third party vendors to create compilers, and development environments, royalty free.
Smalltalk is still, in many ways, superior to Java. It supports functional programming using code-blocks, a feature Java tries to emulate using anonymous inner classes (but which ends up being clunky and slow). It supports generic programming naturally, since code will simply work if the objects it is working with have all of the required interface. A great deal of doors are opened in the Object-Oriented paradigm when you include dynamic typing.
The static typing provided in C/C++ is pretty weak compared to that in Ocaml or SML. In practice, it tends to step on your toes a great deal more than help you create a well-defined error free program. Smalltalk can make use of type inference analysis the same way Ocaml does. Most runtime-errors will reveal flaws in your code, and static analysis can weed out the rest. In the end, the advantages of dynamic programming are pretty considerable.
Smalltalk has actually, over the past couple of years, began to build up a bit of steam. Some open-source implementations have been popping up here and there.
For an example of the power of Smalltalk, check out the open-source Squeak project: www.squeak.org
I'm a big fan of Java, but maybe even a bigger fan of Smalltalk. I think after playing around with it a bit, it will become apparent to anyone that they seem to have very little in common.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
After all, the Smalltalk branch of OOP philosophy is the driving force behind Objective-C and Cocoa. And Apple is really starting to do some interesting work in advancing the usefulness of computers, which is right up Kay's alley.
the old slogan was "invent"
.....
the new slogan
"merge, layoff, and go out of business"
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
No, they didn't get lucky. I'm guessing maybe you're too young to remember the degree to which Michael Dell revolutionized PC manufacturing, marketing and sales when he started the company. Sure, today, they're just exploiting the hell out of the model that Michael Dell set up, but luck had very little to do with it. Microsoft got lucky, with the whole IBM deal and the monopoly thing. Dell did something quite rare: built a major business from scratch in a highly competitive market, achieving success the old-fashioned way: out-competing his competitors.
For some interesting anecdotes involving Alan
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
Jim Gettys (the X Window System guy) also got the boot from HP. It is mentioned here.
Spoken like a true idiot. All stockholders are not "tremendously rich". In fact, the public at large owns about 60% of all the stocks in this country in direct ownership, mutual funds, retirement funds, and pension funds. Then add in insurance companies who invest premiums to have the money to pay claims... and banks who invest savings to pay interest and make loans... and...
I'd say you get the idea, but I'm pretty sure you don't.
So let's do away with savings accounts, mutual funds, pension funds, health, life, home, and car insurance, and all those other things made possible by stockholder ownership in those nasty, greedy, hateful corporations. Hell, half the U.S. population won't mind having their savings and retirement accounts wiped away.
Will they?
Idiot.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
HP stock dives when Lexmark sells 3 printers. Because HP is just a printing company.
HP stock dives when Dell changes their standard chassis color. Because HP is just a PC company.
HP stock dives when IBM does some new services campaign. Because HP is just a consulting company.
HP stock dives because they announce a new technology out of HP Labs. Because Dell doesn't have R&D, they save all that cash. HP is stupid for spending on that when they could just repaint Intel systems.
HP stock dove this week because somebody leaked that they'd lay off 25,000 people. When it ended up only being 14,500, HP just wasn't serious about cutting costs.
I am not saying that HP is fantastic, I am just saying that to call them just a PC company is silly. We all know that two articles from now (since there will be a dupe of this one before the next new article) it will be about printing, and everybody will say how HP is going to die since all they do is make printers...
It will be an interesting year for HP. By 6/1/06, the company could look completely different.
And one thing to consider, no computer seller is an engineering company any longer. Dell never was, Lenovo isn't going to be, Gateway isn't.
Agilent is the engineering half of HP.
My mom says I'm cool.
Do you think that any geek who achieves momentary fame should have a job for life? Don't you think an employee should be measured by the value he's contributing now?
When I heard "Alan Kay" I remembered this load of whining. Here's my comment on that.
I have more respect for people who actually get things done, like the Linux kernel contributors, than people who pontificate on the future of OO or whatever. Anyone claiming that HP should keep this guy because of his long-past accomplishments should have his head examined. HP should only retain people who help the company make money and move forward.
Well, let's see. Your particular solutions to the (admittedly growing) problem of corporatism in America appear to involve using force to prevent people from joining together for profit-making purposes.
He's right, you are putting up straw men because he said nothing of the sort. He specically said the the current limited-liability for-profit corporate model is broken because the current legal framework for those corps requiring profit maximization not only encourages unethical behaviour but requires often self-destructive short-term focus.
While he did put up non-profit corps as an alternative, there are others: for-profit partnerships for example. The point he argues is that the profit motive should not be divorced from responsibility for a corp's actions.
One alternative, which is certainly possible with current information systems, is to change the definition of shareholder liability in a limited-liability corporation to be capped at the share value (during ownership) or (post-divestment) all income obtained from that corporation, via both capital gains and dividends, for the result of any actions taken during the period of share ownership, regardless of whether a person is still a shareholder or has sold their shares. So you can't be a CEO/President (or majority shareholder supporting said executive), run a company into the ground through unethical practices, hide it while making a killing by selling shares through an overinflated stock price, and escaping the liability for those actions when the pigeons come home to roost.
And if you're a small shareholder (or pension manager), you'll have a lot more interest in making sure you have company directors that are providing good oversight of the executive team, instead of rubber stamping their golf club buddies.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
DEC had a huge research empire. CRL in MA, handy
for the MIT diaspora. WRL in Palo Alto for the
Stanford diaspora. And then for added flavour
SRC a block down from WRL, created so that Bob
Taylor could employ the PARC diaspora (Thacker,
Lampson). What good did it do them? A lot of
work on X --- the xterm(1) manual page has people
from all three, I think. Alta Vista, which Mike
Burrows and others did at SRC. Brian Reid did a
load of interesting stuff at WRL. Lamport was
at SRC at various points, for which us LaTeX users
give much thanks. I'm told SRC people bailed
the Alpha design out at various points. But after
that? At least a thousand man-years to produce...?
Compaq kept it all going, but HP already had labs
in Palo Alto and Bristol. How many research
operations does a PC maker with a shrinking
server market need? To do what?
ian
It certainly isn't about saving bandwidth--it is about forcing some people with basic, easily fixable problems to buy a new printer.
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
Yeah this is a troll. If not, you need to take an economics class.
The way corporations operate may be bad, but it's no worse than the nobles in the monarchies of europe. Corporations made it possible for the common man to get involved in ownership of a large company, which was previously limited to only the super-rich. At least now, if I see Microsoft getting rich and I am jealous, I can just go buy a piece of Microsoft and share in the wealth.
You posit a socialist world, which Soviet Russia proved was good on paper, but a spectacular failure in practice. The Chinese are learning from the mistakes of the USSR by EMBRACING corporate capitalism while keeping the government involved.
Greed runs the world. Bitch about it all you like, but this is the way it always has been and always will be. The only way to be safe from greed is to be greedy yourself. Even if the US were to pass laws forbidding profitable corporations, nothing would change. They would simply move to China or Russia or Canada. If you are not greedy, someone else will be and you'll just be poor. If everyone is not greedy, it just takes one greedy person to amass resources and abuse power. On the other hand, if everyone is greedy, things will eventually work out.
20th century economics has taught us that governments cannot control the economy, they can only guide it. The economy is controlled by market forces; the mass will of the people. It is folly to try and "dream of a better system" because the system dictates itself. Even if you could think of something better, the goal could only be to make more money, or else nobody will bother.
Stop trolling on slashdot and go out and learn stuff about the world. We all wish for the world to be a better place but there are some facts about the world and the nature of people that we have to operate within.
I thought the fathers of OOP were Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen Nygaard.
They created the first OOP language, after all...
Smalltalk failed, essentially, because the companies providing Smalltalk tools in the early commercialization window decided that it was a _premium_ technology and that they should therefore charge people up the wazoo. Multiple thousands of dollars a developer seat did not a popular language make.
-josh
HP have made disastrous decision after disastrous decision lately and will head down the Great Crapper of the Universe in short-order, unless they can hire a manager who *doesn't* think like you.
Also, if it were that easy, you don't think all their competitors would do it?
The industry has been heading in that direction for the past 20 years or so. Dell's only achievement is finding a decent balance between price and quality.
Yeah. Thanks in large part to....Dell! They're one of a handfull of companies who have continually found ways to push margins. And when most companies start to get soft, they found ways to continually pound their competitors. That's the thing - as cheap as computers are now, they're still finding ways to make them cheaper.
They got lucky. Part of the reason they are successful is because they never innovate and spend as little as possible on engineering and R&D.
I'm guessing you're not in the business world, because crippling every single one of your competitors in an amazingly competitive industry doesn't happen through luck.
Basically, I'm pretty sure you just have a set idea of what innovation is, and that happens to coincide with pushing the technical envelope. However, the guy who invents it doesn't get it into homes. That would be the guy who figures out to make it cheaper. Dell has been that guy for the last 20 years. If it were up to IBM, PCs would still cost over $1000, which is what the bottom of the line PC cost 13 years ago when I got my first.
On the topic of corporate mistakes, one of my favorites is IBM and GE (and others, but I don't know who) turning down the patent for photocopying when its inventor offered it to them. They didn't think there was a market for copiers.
That honor goes to Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen Nygaard, the designers of Simula. Simula had a strong effect on both Kay and Smalltalk.
I'm at OLS and the rumour is that Keith Packard and Jim Gettys are also going.
People like that are what keep alive your internal corporate culture.
Those are the guys that tell you where no to set your foot because they did so before and found there was a bear trap.
If you seriously are saying that HP can't find a place on their company for a guy that shaped a good part of software development carried out during the last 20 years, worldwide, then you and HP need to sit down and pause because you both are lunatics.
People like these are few per generation. I am sure other more enlightened companies (like the ones mentioned on the thread), that are actually shapping the IT world will snap him if he still feels like working.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Operational excellence is not innovation. Quit diluting the meaning of words. Innovation means "introducing something new". If Dell introduced a different, cheaper way to put together computers, it would be innovation. If they found a cheaper supplier, it's good business but it's not innovation.
Anyway, it's not Dell who lowered prices, but rather the chip industry. They are the actual innovators here -- chip density increased more than 10-fold in the last 15 or so years, which is the sole reason for price reductions. If a processor and motherboard combo still cost $500 (which is what I paid in 1995), Dell would still be building $1000 computers.