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"Tech Heroes" From Ada Lovelace to Jamie Z
An anonymous reader writes "The Web 2.0 Journal has launched a search for what it calls "the all-time heroes of i-Technology" (its own shorthand for 'Internet technologies'), reaching as far back as to The Countess of Lovelace, though whether or not Ada Lovelace is truly the first programmer is not discussed. As an exercise in reminding ourselves whose shoulders we are standing on when hurtlng towards the 21st-century, richer Web it's not a bad start. Naturally there are sins of omission..."
The Web 2.0 Journal has launched a search for what it calls "the all-time heroes of i-Technology"
In the search for heroes, they should talk to a Mr. Mohinder Suresh. I hear he has a list.
Push Button, Receive Bacon
a Web 2 "journal" that doesn't even validate and uses tables for presentation (not to mention 20+adverts per page) spread over 18 pages
if that's what web 2 is all about i'm dreading Web 3
Yeah, like no CowboyNeal option!
Monstar L
A journal with that name just has to be a joke. Yes I did try to read the fucking article, but it was obscured by a large photograph of a bridge. I guess this was an advert.
Well I'm glad to see this web 2.0 is so user friendly.
Douglas Engelbart, the true father of desktop computing. At a time when computers were used merely for data processes, he envisioned they could be used in the everyday life.
I wonder if I use bold in my signature, people will notice my posts.
Yet most people are adamant about treating it as something absolute, regardless of the countless revisions that resurface based on the most valuable thing a human being can possess; critical thinking.
Was Ada Lovelace the first programmer? Who knows, but more importantly, who would this mean anything to? Who would it favour if she was?
Ad gangbang!!!!!
I can't believe it, gazillion ads on one page (they topped tom's hardware)
when hurtlng towards the 21st-century, richer Web
I think I'll stick to plain HTML 4.0.1 if web 2.0 is going to hurt that much.
home
Think of it this way: you were looking at page 1. Of 22. Now, do you feel better? If you *had* read the fucking article, you would have had to click 22 times on that "close this window" button. That's what you get when you try to read an article about the inventor of Ada, the most overhyped language until Ruby.
My question is: Who has been given credit for things that other people invented? Who are the unsung heros and who are the rip-off artists?
For instance, I always gave credit for the invention of spread spectrum to Hedy Lamarr (a movie star). Then I found this little gem:
"Frequency hopping spread spectrum was a public domain idea by 1917. The Germans used it in WWII. Hitler wanted to win by bluff and before the war started, invited public figures from England and the US to see how invincible his military was. Hedy Lamarr, who has similar scientific-mathematical skills to Cher and Edith Bunker, was among one of these groups who was shown the "invincible" communication system the German's had. When the group got back to the US, they applied for a patent and possibly as a joke put only Hedy's name on it. The patent office examiners then, as they are now, are not practicing engineers and are spread over a wide range of technology, they are jacks of all trades and masters of none. They are also short of time to keep up with what is going on in the engineering world or to study engineering history. They only see if a similar patent was issued in the past. Finding none, they issued the patent. This is why so many patents are being issued these days on public domain prior art." The guy who wrote it has several other examples of people who came up with something first not getting credit for it.
http://www.analog-rf.com/mixer.shtml
I'll give the author the benefit of the doubt and assume he is stuck in 1998. The article link confirms this assumption.
How is it possible to create a list of the most important people in technology throughout history and _not_ include Shannon. Jeez, the guy is the father of information theory and digital circuit design!
Jesus, I really, really hope that turd of a buzzword doesn't catch on with PHB's or the media. I'm pretty sure I would seriously hurt anyone who referred to my job as being in the "i-Technology" industry.
Am I they only one sick of hearing how great Miss ADA is?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
How could they forget Alan Turing? The inventor of the Turing test for AI, and father of the modern computer?
How to make a flamewar in under F characters: I love SuSE!
At the risk of stating the obvious, the list is missing John Bardeen and Walter Brattain, the guys who invented the transistor (With their manager, William Shockley, they won the Nobel prize in physics for it).
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Andy Hertzfield: Eazel developer and Macintosh forefather
Jean Ichbiah: Creator of Ada
Grace Murray Hopper: Developer of the first compiled high level programming language, COBOL
Jordan Hubbard: One of the creators of FreeBSD; currently a manager of Apple's Darwin project
Jean D Ichbiah: Principal designer, Ada language (1977)
Ken Iverson: Inventor of APL, later J
I've never used ADA, is it really so good that its inventor had to be listed twice in the same list?
Who Are The All-Time Heroes of i-Technology?
I wonder how many people, as I did, found themselves thrown into confusion by the death last week of Jean Ichbiah (pictured below), inventor of Ada.
Learning that the inventor of a computer programming language is already old enough to have lived 66 years (Ichbiah was 66 when he succumbed to brain cancer) is a little like learning that your 11-year-old daughter has grown up and left home or that the first car you ever bought no longer is legal because it runs on gasoline in an age where all automobiles must run on water. How can something as novel, as new, as a computing language possibly already be so old-fangled that an early practitioner like Ichbiah can already no longer be with us?
The thought was so disquieting that it took me immediately back to the last time I wrote about Ichbiah, and indeed about Ada Lovelace for whom his language was named. It was in the context of my quest a couple of years ago to identify the Top Twenty Software People in the World.
It began as an innocent enough exercise, inadvertently kick-started by Tim Bray writing in his popular "Ongoing" blog about how he rated Google's Adam Bosworth as "probably one of the top 20 software people in the world." Already famous for Quattro Pro, Microsoft Access, and Internet Explorer 4 even before he joined BEA as VP of engineering in 2001, when BEA bought Crossgain, the company he'd by then cofounded after leaving Microsoft, Bosworth went on to become BEA's chief architect before leaving to join Google. Definitely a shoo-in for the Top Twenty then. But the question naturally arose - or at least it did in my mind - who are the other 19?
I knew that it would not be easy to answer, and not because there are too few candidates but because there are too many. The names of today's leading i-technologists - whose collective smarts Internet technologies rely on for their unceasing innovation and ingenuity - trip off most people's tongues in a heartbeat: just think of Sergey Brin, Bill Joy, Linus Torvalds, Tim Berners-Lee, James Gosling, Anders Hejlsberg, Don Box, Nathan Myhrvold, W. Daniel Hillis, Mitch Kapor... all clear members of the "technorati" or "digerati" - call them what you will - the undisputed aristocrats of the online world.
But what about those who came before, the precursors of the current crop of talent? I wrote at the time:
"Can a list of the Top 20 i-Technologists possibly be compiled that doesn't cause the online equivalent of fistfights when published? Obviously not. But that shouldn't deter us from trying."
My inbox soon began to throb with the deluge of nominations, and within days I was able to list forty mind-bogglingly gifted candidates, as follows (click on the name for a brief description of the individual concerned):
* Tim Berners-Lee: "Father of the World Wide Web" and expectant father of the Semantic Web
* Joshua Bloch: Formerly at Sun, where he helped architect Java's core platform; now at Google
* Grady Booch: One of the original developers of the Unified Modeling Language
* Adam Bosworth: Famous for Quattro Pro, Microsoft Access, and IE4; then BEA, now Google
* Don Box: Coauthor of SOAP
* Stewart Brand: Cofounder in 1984 of the WELL bulletin board
* Tim Bray: One of the prime movers of XML, now with Sun
* Dan Bricklin: Co-creator (with Bob Frankston) of VisiCalc, the first PC spreadsheet
* Larry Brilliant: Cofounder in 1984 of the WELL bulletin board
With the patenting of other people's ideas, Microsoft could be the "Sylar" of Tech Heroes.
Of course that was the problem: When Ada came out only very powerfull system where able to run an Ada compiler so not many programmers could actualy try the language.
But that's not a problem any more, grap yourself an open source Ada compiler [1] and see for yourself.
As for Ruby: That seems a nice enough language as well. Never given me any problems. So where actually is your problem?
Martin
[1] http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ada_Programming/Inst
For crying out loud I hope that list was not supposed to be in order of importance.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
He's an absolutely huge omission from the list.
If you're unaware, he wrote a memo in 1945 titled 'As we may think' which laid down a lot of seminal ideas about information, computing devices (the Memex) and the way in which we interact with it - specifically the concept of hypertext.
If you haven't already read his memo, give it a shot. Along with Alvin Toffler's book 'Future Shock', this changed the way I view technology for ever... oh, stick Alvin Toffler on the list too, Bill Gates for 'commoditising' the PC, Gordon Moore, pretty much anyone who ever worked at Xerox PARC and the guy who invented the MP3 codec. They're all important to why we're sat here today.
American Dental Association...
Americans for Democratic Action...
Assistant District Attorney...
American Diabetes Association...
which of them [1] are you sick off?
I personaly am sick of people who don't know that a "A female given name."[2] is not spelled all upper case.
Martin
[1] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ADA
[2] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Ada
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Zuse
Bill Gates for single handedly creating the Desktop computer, the GUI, the Web and the Internet .. :)
davecb5620@gmail.com
This is by far the worst one.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
"In 1924 and 28, Nyquist and Hartley published the limits to communication over a noisy channel. In 1949, Shannon and Weaver published a book on the same subject. Shannon got the credit for Nyquists' and Hartley's work. He also claimed the 34 year old sampling theorem as his own work.
H. Nyquist, "Certain Factors Affecting Telegraph Speed," Bell Systems Tech. Jour., vol. 3, April 1924, p. 324
H. Nyquist, "Certain Topics in Telegraph Transmission Theory," A.I.E.E. Trans., vol. 47, April 1828, p. 617
R. V. L. Hartley, "The Transmission of Information"Bell Systems Tech. Jour., vol. 7, July 1928, pp. 535-564"
http://www.analog-rf.com/mixer.shtml
I'd say Shannon is a candidate for someone who got credit that belonged to someone else.
By the time I logged in to read a Slashdot article about the creators of the Internet, not a single Al Gore joke had been posted.
YARGH! Mine eyes and ears are bleeding! This one even stumped adblock with filterset G. Here's the print version: http://web2journal.com/read/331813_p.htm
We need a tag for "loaded up with ads to the point where you can't even RTFA if you wanted to", but I can't think of anything pithy. "adsoup"?
I can explanate how to administrate your network. You must configurate and segmentate it, so it can computate.
Some people are on his list just because they hold ranking positions on big companies, not for what they did.
How the hell did Bill Gate get on a list with Vince Cerf, John Postel, Robert Metcalfe, and Nicklaus Wirth? All he did was singlehandly pollute the Internet with spam, and lower IT standards to the point of making IT the laughing stock of the technology sector. Truly an intellectual midget among giants.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
Nabokov called _Lolita_ the story of his love affair with the English language.
(I vote we talk about anything and everything *except TFA.)
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
There's a list about "i-Technology" and neither Jonathan Ive, nor even Steve Jobs is anywhere to be found!?
Lamarr was in Hollywood in 1937.
U.S. Patent Number 2,292,387, August 11th, 1942, [was awarded to Hedy Lamarr] under the name 'Hedy Keisler Markey' (her married name) and George Antheil, for a 'Secret Communications System.' Nomination for the EFF Pioneer award
Lamarr's first husband was an independent munitions maker interested in control systems whose European properties were confiscated by the Reich in 1938. George Antheil, an avant-garde composer interested in the related problem of synchronizing non-traditional "instruments" in concert performance. Advanced Weaponry of the Stars
Hitler wanted to win by bluff and before the war started, invited public figures from England and the US to see how invincible his military was.
Hitler was always alert to the propaganda value of massive displays of troops and guns and planes.
But he was not such a fool as to prematurely expose the secret technologies of jet propulsion, radar, guided missiles, the Enigma, etc., that, in the end, might prove decisive.
I wonder why people seem to forget the inventions done by Douglas Engelbart. "What did he do?", you might ask. Or maybe you say something like "oh, the mouse guy, right?". Well, If I was only to point out one thing he did, I would mention what we call "the mother of all demos" which he gave in december 1968. There he demonstrated the use of a mouse, hypertext linking and video conferencing. Again: He demonstrated the use of a mouse and hypertext linking in documents more than 20 years before Tim Berners-Lee "invented" the web.
Some references for those interested:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Engelbart
http://sloan.stanford.edu/mousesite/1968Demo.html
http://www.bootstrap.org/
Presper Eckert (ENIAC)
Alex Stepanov (STL)
J.C.R. Licklider (ARPA)
Charles Goldfarb et al (SGML)
Jim Clarke (Silicon Graphics, Netscape)
Agree this is in part a popularity contest. Some of the ones on the original list were influential tech CEOs or Chief Architects in their time, but does that Hall of Fame material?
And if you say "Myrhvold", I think you must also say Bruce and ESR....
I'd include Steve Wozniak. He was the one who designed the Apple. The Apple II and The Trash-80 were the real home computers available for the masses. The earlier computers where you had to get them from Heathkit or toggle in your boot loader, didn't quite make it in the home and the business.
Also I would add Jonathan Rotenberg. He founded the Boston computer Society in 1977. The BCS served as a incubator for new products and companies. Many of the large computer companies made presentations and announcements to the BCS. Several companies used groups of people at the BCS as source for focus groups and and source for beta groups (back in the days where they didn't consider customers their alpha testers).
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... Al Gore for inventing the internet.
... George W. Bush for popularizing "the google".
I'm afraid the identity of the "Any" key creator (possibly the most useful one in all computing) has been lost to history.
Have gnu, will travel.
... for reminding the megacorps that "It's about the people stupid!"
Why are we acknowledging this article? Any site that refers to Web 2.0 as anything other than a stupid marketing buzzword has no clue who the real IT heroes are. How about a hurrah for the poor sap working the graveyard shift in the NOC, or the overworked sysadmin who needs to restore a server or correct daemon errors every time the hyped-up "Web 2.0" services break?
If anyone missed it , this is what the article looks like, FF2.0 . The most horrible Adsoup of Web 2.0
My Starcraft 2 Blog
It was nice to see Stewart Brand (and Larry Brilliant) there, the founders of the Well. But, Jeremy didn't mention the _author_ of the Well (PicoSpan), Marcus Watts. (A friend of mine.)
Matt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%E2%80%93Hartl ey_theorem
The above linked wiki article is excellent and shows the relation between Nyquist, Hartley and Shannon. AFACT, you could make the argument either way.
A similar question might be: Who is the father of radio? Marconi? Maxwell?
Who discovered the electron? ancient Greeks? Stoney? Thompson?
In attributing credit for something, the guy favors the first one to posit an idea even if the practical implementation came much much later. He points out that the math behind DSP is over a hundred years old. True as far as it goes. Of course, I usually credit Oppenheim. So, the guy may or may not have an axe to grind but at least he seems to be consistent and makes an argument that can be reasonably defended.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
I don't know James Long, Ph.D, but he seems to have an ax to grind. Most people who met Hedy Lamarr would verify she was extremely intelligent. Her husband in the early 30's, Fritz Mandal, was an engineer and producer of aircraft, artilery, and early weapons guidance. It would appear Hedy learned a thing or two during their time together.
There are many accounts of Lamarr explaining the process by which she and George Antheil invented the concept of frequency hopping. At the outbreak of WWII Hedy had in idea for a torpedo guidance system. Antheil suggested a way to sync the necessary systems together using a roll of punched paper (as in a player piano)
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I have enough to do without attending some sort of award banquet.
Indeed they had - but that too has been abolished. Getting an Ada compiler today cost you $0,-- these days (thanks to the US-Navy sponsoring one). And it is not a crippled compiler like the Delphi for home users. It's fully functional, with IDE (also fully functional) and even an CORBA ORB. Ada has learned from it's mistakes.
However: There is an advantage here as well: All compiler ventdors - even today - comply with the standart. There is an ISO standart describing the official test harnish.
All unlike C/C++ where only one minor player has a fully compliant compiler. So he says: There is no official test harnish to find out.
Martin
In the early Model 3s, it had a special security feature. If you turned the power off with the diskette in the drive, it would wipe the diskette. It sold very well to bookies, loan-sharks, mafioso.
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