Software Engineers Are the Heroes of New Computer History Museum Exhibit (ieee.org)

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Software Engineers Are the Heroes of New Computer History Museum Exhibit (ieee.org)

Posted by BeauHD on Thursday January 26, 2017 @10:00PM from the changing-the-world dept.

Tekla Perry writes: The Computer History Museum set out to turn the spotlight on software engineers and show how they are the changing the world. But what projects to feature in the new, permanent exhibit [called "Make Software: Change the World!"] (that opens to the public this Saturday, January 28th)? The curators whittled a list of 100 technologies that owe their existence to breakthroughs in software down to seven: Photoshop, the MP3, the MRI, car crash simulation, Wikipedia, texting, and World of Warcraft. They expect these choices to be debated at length, in particular, World of Warcraft, but hope the exhibition elevates the prominence of software engineers and gets more than a few middle schoolers talking about targeting their career plans in that direction.

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Digital compressors and filters by evanh · 2017-01-26 23:03 · Score: 1

The development of digital compressors and filters would be the bare tech at the heart of MPEG and all that followed. And that'll cover all modems too.
Separating hardware from software becomes difficult.
1. Re: Digital compressors and filters by Entrope · 2017-01-27 00:12 · Score: 1
  
  Modems aren't compressors, and filters are radically different from compression algorithms. Modems use filters, but also do other things, such as (nowadays) forward error correction. Speaking of which: Computationally efficient, near-Shannon-limit codes are another truly impressive development in tech.
Re:Please, include a killer drone. by infolation · 2017-01-26 23:07 · Score: 2

I guess it's outside the 'top seven', but the simplest, lowest-level, error-free code is the unsung hero to me.

For example, the AGC Apollo Guidance Computer springs to mind as a world-changing piece of code.

(Link is to the original Apollo 11 guidance computer (AGC) source code for Command Module (Comanche055) and Lunar Module (Luminary099).)
Re:Replace MP3 with MPEG. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-26 23:08 · Score: 1

MP3 doesn't even belong because the research to develop it was done by one inventor working alone on his PhD dissertation while listening to a song on the radio. There wasn't a social team of socializing socialites behind it. Not social enough for the social era. Remove it from the museum.
They forgot compilers by Viol8 · 2017-01-26 23:14 · Score: 3, Interesting

Without these NONE of the above would have happened. Good luck programming any of them in assembler.
1. Re:They forgot compilers by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-26 23:22 · Score: 1
  
  But everything should be rewritten in Fatwa^H^H^H^H^HJavaScript! Apps!
2. Re:They forgot compilers by GuB-42 · 2017-01-27 00:46 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  I think the reason they didn't mention compilers, and OSes for that matter is that they limited themselves to things that are actually useful for the end user, not what lie behind it.
  All examples are the visible part of different kinds of underlying technologies. It is actually a pretty good list as they managed to represent a wide variety of technology with a wide variety of applications.
  The choice of World of Warcraft is a particularly good one IMHO. Video games are a major component of the history of computing and it is important to include something to represent this industry. WoW is a very successful game made by a very successful company and so, a good representative. There is also a wide array of technologies behind it. It is a realtime 3D game with all that implies in term of computer imaging and GPU development, it also has a complex network architecture behind it, with game servers, database servers, load balancing, etc... Being a paid game with a subscription, it even dips into eCommerce.
3. Re:They forgot compilers by Viol8 · 2017-01-27 02:06 · Score: 1
  
  WoW is neither the first of its kind nor the best, its just arguably the most popular. Yes, there's a lot of infrastructure behind it but there's just as much behind the till you buy your groceries at. So what. If they want to represent videogames then pong, space invaders, pacman or even Doom would have been far more appropriate.
4. Re:They forgot compilers by waveclaw · 2017-01-27 04:43 · Score: 1
  
  I think the reason they didn't mention compilers, and OSes for that matter is that they limited themselves to things that are actually useful for the end user, not what lie behind it.
  At one point compilers and OSes were the things used by the end-user. The very definition of an operating system is a kernel, standard library and compiler. This means that for most of its history Microsoft did not actually sell a actual computer operating system by definition. But for many users their computer is just their favorite application. To your accountant the computer is just a means to access email, quickbooks and irs.gov. To your kids the computer is the thing that provides access to disney.com.
  The biggest change has been in the users, not so much in what was provided. The typical target user has not been academics or geeks in decades. Applications are targeted at children with no technical skills, busy parents with no technical skills and professionals with absolutely no technical skills. They interface to the computer in their pocket through rote, learned application-centric tasks. Like thumb pressing a share button to tweet a picture of their cat.
  
  Video games are a major component of the history of computing and it is important to include something to represent this industry.
  
  The popular media may want to whitewash history but major improvements in computing like operating systems, networking and personal computers follow two very end-user focused applications of processing power. One is pornography. The other is video games. Ken Thompson developed little project called UNIX based on a system to play a game called Space Travel on a PDP-7. That design seems to have done pretty well. The success of AOL hinged upon their dominance of the online "dating" scene, not so much their free coasters. Modern machine learning algorithms are designed with kernels that run efficiently on PC video cards. The same cards which had their expensive research and development paid for by at home video game enthusiasts craving a few more pixels or FPS.
  But to your system administrator you are all equally end-users. Compiler in hand or not.
  
  "The pillars of your bright new world were built by people whose minds are so arcane and alien to you that you will never be able to comprehend exactly how much you rely on the hobbies of dead legends."
  -- Lesrahpem "LINUX INSIDE!" (paraphrased) 2009 September 22 03:44 AM
  
  --
  
  "You cannot have a General Will unless you have shared experiences. You cannot be fair to people you don't know."
As long as they don't include Steve Jobs by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · 2017-01-26 23:14 · Score: 1

I'll only take this exhibition seriously if it has something on Woz and nothing on the "genius" Steve Jobs for a change.

--
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
1. Re:As long as they don't include Steve Jobs by JasterBobaMereel · 2017-01-27 00:32 · Score: 1
  
  All of these (except MRI) are the Steve Jobs of software, they are the secondary popular copy of someone else's original idea
  
  --
  Puteulanus fenestra mortis
2. Re:As long as they don't include Steve Jobs by The-Ixian · 2017-01-27 02:44 · Score: 2
  
  Agreed. Though, these are only going to be the big sexy projects that everyone can recognize.
  Something tells me that fundamental network protocols, text editors, command line tools, file systems and so on will not be mentioned.
  It's always the rock stars that get all the attention even though they inevitably rely on a million work horses behind the scenes to achieve their popularity.
  
  --
  My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
BSOD by l20502 · 2017-01-26 23:22 · Score: 2

spotted, is it intententional?
Re:Neither software nor engineering by ls671 · 2017-01-26 23:38 · Score: 1

You mean like a railroad engineer? (American and Canadian) which is an engine driver, train driver, train operator (British and Commonwealth English); a person who operates a train.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
It just come from "engine-man" but "engineer" sure sounds more important.
It still has nothing to do with what a real engineer is but nowadays, everybody is an engineer so there is no discrimination I guess ;-)

--
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
What a load of crock by thegarbz · 2017-01-26 23:48 · Score: 3, Interesting

Software that changed the world? World of Warcraft is a game, what about pageranking and crawling? Where's the search engines?
Why is a patent encumbered music compression format on the list, did music not get shared before it? I mean the most popular online music shops don't use that format, neither does digital radio. Why MP3 and not AAC, and isn't MP3 just a succession of a previous format and one that is under constant redevelopment?
On that list, Photoshop, MRIs and Wikipedia deserve the place. The rest should get the curators fired.
1. Re:What a load of crock by Slashvertisment · 2017-01-26 23:55 · Score: 1
  
  Why is a patent encumbered music compression format on the list, did music not get shared before it?
  You've answered your own question, the answer is yes. The introduction of the MP3 format directly led to the explosive growth of music sharing online. Before MP3 in the bad old days WAV was about it, and even relatively small audio clips were far too large to store or transfer many of.
2. Re:What a load of crock by klingens · 2017-01-27 00:53 · Score: 1
  
  One can debate if it's WoW that should depict computer games. Personally I would have chosen Pong oder PacMan, probably Pong.
  But computer gaming has redefined the world, for better or worse.
  MP3 did change the world cause it was first. Just like the cars 100 years ago changed the world, even when a horse and buggy was waayyy more practical and faster and cheaper then. Mrs. Benz' car was simply shit when she made her historical drive to relatives, but the concept of cars changed the world. Same with MP3s. AAC is irrelevant: one in a long string of different forgettable formats. MP3 was the first psychoacoustic format unlike mp2, where you leave out stuff that doesn't matter subjectively, same as with all our video codecs. The only competitor there is JPEG, which IIRC was before MP3, another lossy format. Only that crucial innovation allows us to have digital media across a network, medialibraries in our pockets, etc.
  Tho there should have been a few other inventions, more important than all the consumer facing things. Like COBOL, like spreadsheets. Stuff that changed society behind the curtain but changed it nevertheless. But it's easier to bring in people and especially kids going to the museum (schoolchildren who have to go to a educational day trip) with consumer and especially kid facing technologies. They can relate to WoW, better than to Pong, and COBOL ist totally alien to every one of them and therefore booooring.
3. Re:What a load of crock by _merlin · 2017-01-27 01:11 · Score: 1
  
  Pong is pure TTL logic - there's no computer programming involved. Pac-Man is as much about the sprite/tilemap hardware used to throw graphics on the screen with a relatively slow CPU as it is about the game programming.
4. Re:What a load of crock by JaredOfEuropa · 2017-01-27 01:22 · Score: 1
  
  Actually I thought it was a pretty good list... but I did miss search engines in there. Now there's something that many of us use several times a day for a wide range of tasks, truly a world changer.
  
  In some cases it looks like they did not choose the first instance of a certain idea or piece of technology, but the instance that popularized it. Hence MP3 instead of AAC or previous formats, and WoW instead of Nethack or Ultima Online. Photoshop? Not the first either.
  
  Of course there's always going to be some discussion about lists like these. Personally I am missing VisiCalc on the list; a brilliant idea and bit of software that has persisted in many people's everday lives in more or less the same form, to this day.
  
  --
  If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
5. Re:What a load of crock by Registered+Coward+v2 · 2017-01-27 01:47 · Score: 1
  
  Software that changed the world? World of Warcraft is a game, what about pageranking and crawling? Where's the search engines?
  Why is a patent encumbered music compression format on the list, did music not get shared before it? I mean the most popular online music shops don't use that format, neither does digital radio. Why MP3 and not AAC, and isn't MP3 just a succession of a previous format and one that is under constant redevelopment?
  On that list, Photoshop, MRIs and Wikipedia deserve the place. The rest should get the curators fired.
  I like that they are including the historical context. In rush to create programs we forget they are often merely a new way to do something that has been done before. They are innovative and often provide capabilities and ease of use the previous incarnations lacked; but they aren't new ideas. D&D existed before WOW, Darkrooms before Photoshop, telegrams before texting, etc. Like sex, every generation thinks they discovered it while the previous ones just chuckle...
  
  --
  I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
6. Re:What a load of crock by CastrTroy · 2017-01-27 01:51 · Score: 1
  
  The MP3 file didn't create the phenomenon of sharing music. There were other competing formats at the time. MP3 just happened to be the one that everyone latched on to. I remember downloading music in many other formats including RealAudio, TwinVQ, MP2, OGG, and WMA. The home internet connection itself let to the explosive growth of music sharing online. The format didn't really matter all that much, and without MP3, another of the available formats would have easily taken its place.
  
  --
  
  Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
7. Re:What a load of crock by Solandri · 2017-01-27 05:39 · Score: 1
  
  MP3s were the first time something widely considered to be a physical product (music records, tapes) became a virtual product, transcending any physical encumbrances. Earlier software-only products (computer programs, TV broadcasts) had always been thought of as a virtual product. Since MP3s, other products have or are becoming virtual products (movies, books, product designs for printing on 3D printers).
  
  Technically, stitching patterns were the first thing to make this transition. In the early 19th century, the textile industry started to use mechanical looms which could be "programmed" to make cloth with a certain pattern. These patterns were stored as holes punched into paper cards which would physically guide the looms into stitching the pattern. People quickly figured out that you could "steal" a pattern just by copying the sequence of holes, not actually stealing the physical card. But these were limited to the industry, not widely known about by the general public like MP3s.
  
  I actually would've selected Napster instead of MP3s. While MP3 was the format which freed music from a physical body, it was just a format. If it hadn't been MP3, it would've been some other format like .au (Sun's PCM format which supported u-law lossy compression). Napster is the software which taught the public that music was a virtual concept that could be exchanged just as easily as exchanging ideas, not a physical thing.
8. Re:What a load of crock by thegarbz · 2017-01-27 06:40 · Score: 1
  
  You've answered your own question, the answer is yes.
  You look like you've been paying as much attention to history as the curators. MP3 wasn't the start of sharing, Napster was. Music got shared before hand in various formats, and continues to be shared now in various formats. MP3 was a temporary and incremental improvement in compression of previous formats. There were better compression techniques (equally encumbered such as ATRAC) at the time, and the only reason sharing gained popularity is due to the actual sharing methods not the compression.
  Put Napster in the list as something that changed the world if you want. The work done on that directly lead to decentralisation efforts that ultimately gave us things like torrent. MP3 is completely inconsequential in the world.
9. Re:What a load of crock by thegarbz · 2017-01-27 06:42 · Score: 1
  
  but the instance that popularized it.
  So MP3 still doesn't belong on the list because what popularised music sharing was Napster, and MP3 was a consequence of it being the default format Napster looked for.
10. Re:What a load of crock by thegarbz · 2017-01-27 06:45 · Score: 1
  
  You're miscrediting history, and then you came to the correct conclusion by the end of the post. There was nothing special about MP3. ATRAC had almost quality parity 3 years before MP3 was standardised, and had far superseded it shortly after. What made MP3 special was Napster which not only deserves its place on the list for popularising the idea of stored shareable music, but also started the idea of a P2P network which paved the way to decentralised P2P systems we have today, i.e. a true game changer.
Not Sure How I feel about this by zifn4b · 2017-01-27 00:34 · Score: 4, Insightful

I'm curious how other software engineers feel about this. I mean, I started on a Commodore 64 as a kid and later went on to architect highly scalable enterprise systems but for some reason I don't feel like we need a museum to honor the people who practice our trade. I feel like we should recognize the amazing feats we accomplished with our passion, ingenuity and persistence and inspire others with them. I'm no hero. I'm just a master of a craft and in performing my craft I try to make the world a better place with it.
Also, I doubt the creators of World of Warcraft would consider themselves heroes. World of Warcraft was just an epic feat in creating a time waster. Don't get me wrong, it was a feat of software engineering but it didn't really add much value to the world. There are far better examples of software systems that did really make a difference in the world. For example, we should be honoring DARPA for creating the very technology that Slashdot broadcasts its information on and we have these discussions on. Disney's Spaceship Earth had a futuristic vision of Earth sponsored by AT&T that we would have a global communication network where we could video conference each other around the world. Guess what? We've arrived at the future vision. That's something to stand in sheer awe of, not World of Warcraft and Photoshop.

--
We'll make great pets
1. Re:Not Sure How I feel about this by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-27 01:31 · Score: 1
  
  When we celebrate architecture and it's heroes, we celebrate the likes of Sir Christopher Wren, not so much the guy who designed the extension to your house.
2. Re:Not Sure How I feel about this by StormReaver · 2017-01-27 01:56 · Score: 1
  
  [Internet technology is] something to stand in sheer awe of, not World of Warcraft and Photoshop.
  I agree entirely. NONE of those seven things on the list rise to the level of software heroics. The Internet, on the other hand, changed the world in a way that no other software even remotely approaches.
  While this Computer History Museum exhibit's purpose is laudable, its choices for the exhibit are shamefully ridiculous.
3. Re:Not Sure How I feel about this by JK_the_Slacker · 2017-01-27 03:33 · Score: 1
  
  I could easily argue that the Internet was just an epic feat in creating a time waster.
  I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss World of Warcraft when considering software that added value to the world. For players, there are certainly social benefits to playing, as well as improvements in cooperation, fine motor skills, and tactical and strategic thinking. The game also encourages socialization outside your geographical region, and often outside your cultural boundaries.
  From a scientific point of view, the Corrupted Blood incident has been studied by epidemiologists in an attempt to better understand and diagnose the causes and spread of disease. It has also been studied as an example of how terrorists might operate during a biological attack. The psychology of different player types would make a fascinating study, as well as studying the effects of anonymity on behavior. And from an economic point of view, you could test nearly anything you wanted by looking at different kinds of realms.
  The truth is, many of us are a bit too quick to dismiss games as "something for kids" or "time-wasters." It's certainly true in some cases, but video games in particular started incorporating aspects of literature, philosophy, and culture long ago. If you want a deeper understanding of history, give Europa Universalis or the Age of Empires games a shot. Games like This War of Mine and Spec Ops: The Line will give you a much greater appreciation for the horrors of war, and even PTSD. Ask any player of Katawa Shoujo, Life is Strange, or To The Moon if those games have had an impact on their outlook on life. Ask a Dark Souls player what it has to teach about persistence in the face of adversity.
  I would encourage anyone at all to check out the Extra Credits channel on Youtube. In particular, have a look at some of their videos that approach video games from a cultural, artistic, educational, or personally impactful point of view. The "Because Games Matter" series is very good (and recent).
  
  --
  I'm waiting for a "-1 somepeoplejustshouldn'tgetmodprivileges" meta-moderation.
4. Re:Not Sure How I feel about this by zifn4b · 2017-01-27 06:51 · Score: 1
  
  Well said. Btw, you used the word "engineer" when it should have been "programmer". Developing software is not a physics-based discipline like electrical, mechanical or chemical engineering and therefore is nowhere near the rigor required to be "engineering".
  Go try to solve Primes in P and let me know how much easier it is than electrical, mechanical and chemical engineering. By the way, you might also get a million dollars if you can because it might help solve P vs NP. But you know, mathematics is easy right especially for you electrical engineers. Easy peasy. Godspeed my friend! p.s.: I find it funny this debate has been raging for decades. :)
  
  --
  We'll make great pets
5. Re:Not Sure How I feel about this by zifn4b · 2017-01-27 06:54 · Score: 1
  
  How does that compare to how we honor football players?
  I think it's insane that we pay some sports players millions of dollars a year but police officers and firefighters that keep you and your family safe in a lot of cases make below median household income. We usually don't recognize the true merits of things.
  
  --
  We'll make great pets
Re:Please, include a killer drone. by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2017-01-27 01:02 · Score: 1

The AGC was I believe the first (semi-)serially produced computer with integrated circuits, running a real-time priority-driven executive, the kind that we use now in many computer-controlled devices. Being a proven spaceflight fly-by-wire unit, it later became a foundation for initial airplane digital computer FBW experiments.

--
Ezekiel 23:20
look at life: has software changed it? by PMuse · 2017-01-27 01:08 · Score: 2

Clearly, the museum wasn't trying to list the top 7 most inventive software creations ever. Instead, they looked at people's lives / endeavors and ask whether software had changed that aspect of life. Roughly:
Entertainment (visual): Photoshop
Entertainment (audio): MP3
Medicine: MRI
Manufacturing: car crash simulation
Scholarship: Wikipedia
Communication: texting
It Makes a Visually Appealing Exhibit: World of Warcraft

--
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
1. Re:look at life: has software changed it? by neo-mkrey · 2017-01-27 05:03 · Score: 1
  
  Minecraft would have been a better choice -- it is both educational and entertaining.
XEROX PARC by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-27 01:24 · Score: 1

Where engineers wrote the first code for graphical interfaces - windows, which was the basis for Apple's Macintosh and later Microsoft Windows and every modern operating system. Without that, we'd all be working on command-lines.
They also created the laser printer there, among other items, but I guess that isn't "software" engineering.
Re:Neither software nor engineering by germansausage · 2017-01-27 01:57 · Score: 1

You beat me to it. Around here the real engineers guard their title quite ferociously. Unless you are currently licensed to practice, you had best not be caught using the "e-word". I never could understand why someone would want to claim they were something that they weren't. Sort of like the sad bastards that claim to veterans when they've never served.

You can now get a degree in Software Engineering here but I understand it is basically an electrical engineering degree with a specialization in software. A regular Computer Science degree is not the same thing.
Re:Oh, fuck off. by gnick · 2017-01-27 02:46 · Score: 1

I understand software and engineering quite well, and I use the title.
I'm surprised I don't. I have a MSEE and I was employed as an EE for 14 years up until August. Now my title is "Programmer." I would have preferred "Software Engineer" for resume purposes, but "Programmer" fits just fine. At least it would if I was a capable programmer.

--
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Early Winamp by SeattleLawGuy · 2017-01-27 03:51 · Score: 1

Early Winamp was what made the mp3 work. It was really a great example of "it just works" software. Seeking was quick, plugins were plentiful, they didn't bundle lots of bloatware, it was just a better experience than most of the other options at the time.

--
Real lawyers write in C++
Re:Neither software nor engineering by pjt33 · 2017-01-27 05:13 · Score: 1

A regular CS degree may not be the same as a SE degree, but some of them are accredited for receiving the title of "real engineer". For example, the British Computer Society accredits various CS degrees for the Chartered Engineer qualification, and since that's homologised across the EU there must be similar accreditation in other European countries.
EQ by OrangeTide · 2017-01-27 06:14 · Score: 1

Wasn't EverQuest effectively the same as World of War craft except 5 years earlier? I've played both, the details are different but the general idea is the same.
Most of these MMOs aren't as good as UO back in it's golden days.

--
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Re:Neither software nor engineering by ls671 · 2017-01-27 06:52 · Score: 1

lol:
In Canada, locomotive drivers have a site named "Ingénieurs de locomotives". As my OP link stated, apparently, only in Canada and US do they call train drivers "engineer" so I am not to sure about your English language specific stuff..
http://cpest.teamsterscanada.c...

--
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Re:Please, include a killer drone. by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2017-01-28 00:12 · Score: 1

Bullshit indeed. Five years earlier than late 1962/early 1963 when the first AGC was built? The circuits didn't even exist in the late 1950s!

--
Ezekiel 23:20
Wow, does that mean I get to wear a cape by PJ6 · 2017-01-28 03:34 · Score: 1

and my underwear on the outside, and not get dragged off by security?