The Computer Boys Take Over
1. Introduction: Computer Revolutionaries
Among the history of computing, histories of hw and sw can be treated as separate things
- Hardware history is characterized by "regular and remarkable progress"
- While for software "tension, conflict, failure, …" is constant
- There's is no Moore's Law for software technology
- But the problem was not always (or not only) that software did not work, but that it had undesiderable effects for the organizations using it
With software computer became tools to manage, instead of tools to be managed
History of computer programming
- or, more aptly, history of humans building software
- "that this work would turn out to be difficult and require radically innovative thinking was completely unanticipated"
- coding was considered a low, "static" occupation; something that could be done by low-level worker
- Maurice Wilkes: "And it was with somewhat of a shock that I realized that for the rest of my life I was going to spend a good deal of my time finding mistakes that I had made in my programs"