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

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.

Comments

Re:Please, include a killer drone.

[infolation]

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).)

They forgot compilers

[Viol8]

Without these NONE of the above would have happened. Good luck programming any of them in assembler.

Re:They forgot compilers

[GuB-42]

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.

BSOD

[l20502]

spotted, is it intententional?

What a load of crock

[thegarbz]

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.

Not Sure How I feel about this

[zifn4b]

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.

look at life: has software changed it?

[PMuse]

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

Re:As long as they don't include Steve Jobs

[The-Ixian]

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.