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The Greatest Software Ever
soldack writes "Information Week has an piece on the 12 greatest pieces of software ever. It also notes some that didn't make the cut and why. Their weblog covers 5 others that didn't make the cut."
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12. The Morris worm 11. Google search rank 10. Apollo guidance system 9. Excel spreadsheet 8. Macintosh OS 7. Sabre system 6. Mosaic browser 5. Java language 4. IBM System 360 OS 3. Gene-sequencing software at the Institute for Genomic Research 2. IBM's System R 1. Unix
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Offtopic, but I gotta say: linking directly to the printable version == nice work.
I hope it catches on.
Where's "Hello World"?
"What CPUs are designed to run Java" Lots. Your probably most familiar with the ones on your phone.
That's kind of the point, Sparky.
"Nobody owns the fucking words man." - James Dean
I guess the question remains is which wordprocessor. While there's Wordstar, Wordperfect, and Word that might be worthy, clearly TeX should be in first place and mentioned on his list. TeX is the father of all wordprocessors that followed, and the author Donald Knuth had such firm belief that programmers should be responsible for what they create that he paid for each bug found in the code.
This produced a completely error free program, and started a generation of programs that followed that would drive mechanical typewriters to extinction practically everywhere, and changed how we get printed text onto paper. Hence this is truly great software.
So TeX is a glaring ommission for this list, and probably should have been close to the top, if not number one.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Yeah, but could those run other operating systems? Or run on relatively generic hardware for that matter? Virtualization may not be a new thing, but VMWare has really brought virtualization down from mainframes and big iron proprietary Unix to cheap x86/x86_64 boxes and Linux/Windows. (Though User Mode Linux might have been there before VMware, I don't know). And VMWare ESX could really change how datacenters are run with some of its stuff like VMotion. So, if you need to take a box down for maintenance - no problem, just move the VM's over to another box while they're still running. VMWare's enterprise products can do some really cool stuff, I'll be very interested to see what VMware does with it.
Every time you post an article on Slashdot, I kill a server. Think of the servers!
is tetris. No single piece of software has wasted so much time.
Read reviews of shopping cart software
You may know the original Pentium version, Deathmaze 4999.994399399192934
Dozens of people have already replied with different technologies, and they all use one reference medium: wikipedia.
Why is wikipedia not on the list? I consider this the best invention of technology ever--a method that combines the power of the internet with the minds of people.
Java Language? Excel Spreadsheet? Google search rank?
These, although IMPLEMENTED through software, are not in and of themselves software - they're merely concepts (or in the case of Java, a language).
I like the list, but it's comparing apples and oranges. Surely, if the Java language makes the cut, other languages should make the cut too - C? BASIC? Don't try to tell me that Excel, or even Google search rank, is more important than C has been. And what about markup languages? No HTML?
And, if they're going to include OSes, WINDOWS doesn't make the cut? I'm sure I'll get shot around here for making this comment, but Windows has done wonders for bringing the computer to the masses. What about the software for the computer that INVENTED the modern GUI, the Xerox Alto, which also invented the WYSIWYG Text Editor? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Alto)
I'm sorry, this list doesn't quite make the cut, and it definitely isn't the "Witness the definitive, irrefutable, immutable ranking of the most brilliant software programs ever hacked."
http://www.TheGamerNation.com/Forums
public interface MessageStrategy {
public void sendMessage();
}
public abstract class AbstractStrategyFactory {
public abstract MessageStrategy createStrategy(MessageBody mb);
}
public class MessageBody {
Object payload;
public Object getPayload() { return payload; }
public void configure(Object obj) { payload = obj; }
public void send(MessageStrategy ms) {
ms.sendMessage();
}
}
public class DefaultFactory extends AbstractStrategyFactory {
private DefaultFactory() {}
static DefaultFactory instance;
public static AbstractStrategyFactory getInstance() {
if (null==instance) instance = new DefaultFactory();
return instance;
}
public MessageStrategy createStrategy(final MessageBody mb) {
return new MessageStrategy() {
MessageBody body = mb;
public void sendMessage() {
Object obj = body.getPayload();
System.out.println(obj.toString());
}
};
}
}
public class HelloWorld {
public static void main(String[] args) {
MessageBody mb = new MessageBody();
mb.configure("Hello World!");
AbstractStrategyFactory asf = DefaultFactory.getInstance();
MessageStrategy strategy = asf.createStrategy(mb);
mb.send(strategy);
}
}
In order to get through the lameness filter, I was forced to include this sentence that I would otherwise omit.
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IBM's VM operating system. (1972) OS/360 was a nightmare, and not even the best OS of its era. Burroughs and UNIVAC were way ahead in operating systems in the late 1960s. VM, though, had paging, good security, hypervisor capability, and good performance. In the 1970s. And it's still in use.
-
Backus' FORTRAN compiler (1957) The first good compiler. Optimizing, even. Better code generation than anything running on UNIX prior to the mid-1980s.
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QNX (1980) The first really good microkernel OS. Still in use, deep inside railroad signalling systems, machine tools, and nuclear reactor controls, where it has to work.
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NLS (1967) The first system with a mouse, windows, and a GUI. It took a mainframe to make it go in 1967, but all the key ideas were there.
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AutoCAD (1982) This is the program that replaced the drafting board. Huge increase in productivity. Ever ink in a drawing by hand? Redraw a drawing to make changes? Engineering companies used to have acres of people doing that stuff. No more.
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Bravo (1974) The first what-you-see-is-what-you-get text editor. Multiple fonts. Ran on the Xerox Alto. The ancestor of all modern word processors.
Those are older examples, each a major advance over previous technology. As the technology becomes more mature, the advances become smaller, but more widely deployed./bin/true!
The ultimate example of the Unix philosophy of doing one thing, one thing only, and doing it right!
No arguments, no parameter lists, no side effects, just true!
Such a beautiful example of Unix doesn't just happen; it takes work! Let's look at /bin/true on a Solaris 2.10 box:
Don't let anyone tell you the Unix way is the easy way; it took Six Whole Versions for Sun to get true correct! No wonder Windows is so full of bugs - they're trying to do hundreds of things. If they'd only adopt the Unix philosophy, they might have gotten it right in only ten tries! (Ten, because all the smart people work on Unix.)
Worship the true!
Umm, excel? Try Lotus 1-2-3. Foolish coycat mortals.
One of the most amazing things I've seen is how Lotus 1-2-3 macros turned accountants and clerks into programmers (spehgetti perhaps, but it ran). Lotus did this by leveraging users *existing* knowledge of spreadsheets and menu keystrokes. Just toss in a Goto cell and an IF function into a keystroke recorder and you have a Turing Complete language. Complex billing programs were written by ordinary clerks. There has been nothing like it in scale before or since that I know of. Excel's programming language was only for the bravest of clerks and killed the trend.
Table-ized A.I.
If Excel is there for being the killer app that drives Personel Computer use in business, instead of the mainframe/terminal model before that.
Then that place should really be taken by VisiCacl for the Apple II.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisiCalc
Sure in the end Excel won the war for Windows.
VisiCalc Started the trend.
"Call us when the New age is old enough to drink" Beck
"Like he's ever been laid...."
It's common knowledge that he's screwed millions of people.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Did you read the article? He specifically mentions VisiCalc, and also states WHY he decided Excel should be on the list and NOT VisiCalc. From the article:
For software to be considered a success, it has to be up to handling the job it was created to do.
That axiom certainly applies to VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet software. It's great because it demonstrated the power of personal computing. The software put the ability to analyze and manipulate huge amounts of data into the hands of every business. But VisiCalc itself, despite representing a breakthrough concept, wasn't great software. It was flawed and clunky, and couldn't do many things users wanted it to do. The great implementation of the spreadsheet was not VisiCalc or even Lotus 1-2-3 but Microsoft Excel, which extended the spreadsheet's power and gave businesspeople a variety of calculating tools. Microsoft's claims that it makes great software are open to dispute, but the Excel spreadsheet is here to stay. Nearly everyone is touched by it.
See, there was more thought put into this than you may realize.
Jeez, you really have drunk the Kool-Aid, haven't you?
What does Windows actually do? A bare Windows install is not capable of doing any useful computing at all, it is an Operating System. It is applications that do actual useful computing.
Granted, most applications are written to run on the Windows OS, but that does not make Windows the driver of computing for the masses, it is still the applications.
For business adoption, this was software like Lotus 1-2-3, dBase and WordPerfect. For home use? Games. Face it, most home users on this forum when discussing leaving Windows cite games as the factor keeping them on the platform.
The history of the microcomputer shows that is applications that drove adoption. The early 8-bit machines were sold to hobbyists who used them in little projects, and the generation of the ZX Spectrum and the Commodore 64 sold to families as replacements for the games console, with a little productivity on the side. Meanwhile, 8080 and Z-80 based machines sold to small businesses for WordStar and dBase II on CP/M, and when the IBM PC came and evolved, businesses upgraded to it and the new software available for the platform. It didn't hurt that the IBM name finally gave the microcomputer enough status to be treated seriously by more than SME's. Mac adoption started really heating up with its use in DTP, and Unix workstations sold on the strength of the high-end engineering and science applications that ran on them.
As the PC architecture became more versatile and powerful, and Windows started being more than just a DOS Shell, these separate markets slowly collapsed into one market, that of the Windows-driven Intel architecture, with lone holdouts in the Unix and Mac sectors. But a good objective look at history shows that it was not Windows that created this market. Microsoft merely rode the wave of success of the PC platform, and due to its massive install base was able to provide the most common API for application developers.
Windows being responsible for the whole microcomputer revolution is too silly to be taken seriously by anyone but Microsoft itself.
Mart"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?