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I've been reading the book he mentions, "The Dream Machine", by Mitchell Waldrop. It has been a great read so far (I'm a little past the point of the creation o

by zengid 10y ago

I've been reading the book he mentions, "The Dream Machine", by Mitchell Waldrop. It has been a great read so far (I'm a little past the point of the creation of ARPA), particularly the section about John McCarthy developing LISP and conceiving of the architecture for time-sharing. Reading it has felt like I'm paying my respects to the pioneers of our field, because I am humbled by what they achieved.

nickpsecurity 10y ago
Same here with a lot of the older works. I felt it as I read on Barton's B5000, LISP machines, PARC's stuff, high-assurance security, some high-availability (eg NonStop), SGI's graphic hardware, and so on. Although not with new fundamentals, even Microsoft's VerveOS was a pile of nice engineering with ExpressOS following its lead for Android.
noir_lord 10y ago
It's interesting (to me at least) how much of the ideas they had back then are still waiting to be expounded on, they (and people like them) did the foundational work we still build new things on now, I read a book (I wish I could remember the title) about the architecture of the 2nd and 3rd generations of IBM's mainframes as they battled with the problem of "how do we keep the same software running on different hardware" and came up with virtualisation etc. I wonder how many dusty copies of papers sat in university libraries contain ideas that brushed up and given a new coat of paint would be considered revolutionary. The other side of it is I still use stuff those guys wrote every day, while typing this I switched a bash terminal to run an install command using a program that is pretty much identical (if a superset) of a program written in 1977, 3 years before I was born.
jraines 10y ago
A few favorite quotes from "The Dream Machine" The idea began to dominate my thinking and for the next two evenings I went out after dinner and walked the streets in the dark thinking about it -Jay Forrester, on the idea of magnetic memory Trying to avoid every conceivable error is a recipe for paralysis, having the freedom to make mistakes is necessary for achieving any progress at all -Waldrop (author) on Herbert Simon & the idea of satisficing in the context of behavioral econonmics (he was awarded the Nobel in 1978) . . . a way of life in an integrated domain where hunches, cut-and-try, and the human 'feel for a situation' usefully coexist with powerful concepts, streamlined technology and notation, sophisticated methods, and high powered electronic aids -Englebart, prophesying You couldn't develop and improve the system without seeing how a large and diverse community used it in practice. -Robert Fano, on the development of time sharing The spirit at that meeting was as good as it gets - the most civilized, ecumenical, incredibly supportive atmosphere you could want. People would cheer you on even if they didn't agree with you, just because they loved the fact that you were good -Alan Kay on the early ARPA community We felt strongly that only a very small group could do the project on that timescale . . . I don't remember such a thing as a weekly progress meeting. We were more in tune with progress than that. -Dave Walden on the development of the IMP, the first packet switching node To Lick, the obvious solution to the software crisis was to apply better and more interactive computing . . . when the systems are truly complex, programming has to be a process of exploration and discovery [H]ire the smartest people you can find and give them their head - but let them know who's paying the bills . . . it wasn't enough to hire a bunch of super smart individuals, you had to build a community, a culture, and an environment of innovation. You had to give your people the kind of challenge that would light a fire in their eyes, that would generate an atmosphere of non-stop intellectual excitement, that would let them feel in their gut that this is where the action is. You had to provide them with lavish resources - everything they needed to do the job. And through it all, you had to keep your bottom line guys at bay so your guys could have the freedom to make mistakes -Jack Goldman, founder of PARC

by zengid 10y ago

nickpsecurity 10y ago

Same here with a lot of the older works. I felt it as I read on Barton's B5000, LISP machines, PARC's stuff, high-assurance security, some high-availability (eg NonStop), SGI's graphic hardware, and so on. Although not with new fundamentals, even Microsoft's VerveOS was a pile of nice engineering with ExpressOS following its lead for Android.

noir_lord 10y ago

It's interesting (to me at least) how much of the ideas they had back then are still waiting to be expounded on, they (and people like them) did the foundational work we still build new things on now, I read a book (I wish I could remember the title) about the architecture of the 2nd and 3rd generations of IBM's mainframes as they battled with the problem of "how do we keep the same software running on different hardware" and came up with virtualisation etc. I wonder how many dusty copies of papers sat in university libraries contain ideas that brushed up and given a new coat of paint would be considered revolutionary. The other side of it is I still use stuff those guys wrote every day, while typing this I switched a bash terminal to run an install command using a program that is pretty much identical (if a superset) of a program written in 1977, 3 years before I was born.

jraines 10y ago

A few favorite quotes from "The Dream Machine" The idea began to dominate my thinking and for the next two evenings I went out after dinner and walked the streets in the dark thinking about it -Jay Forrester, on the idea of magnetic memory Trying to avoid every conceivable error is a recipe for paralysis, having the freedom to make mistakes is necessary for achieving any progress at all -Waldrop (author) on Herbert Simon & the idea of satisficing in the context of behavioral econonmics (he was awarded the Nobel in 1978) . . . a way of life in an integrated domain where hunches, cut-and-try, and the human 'feel for a situation' usefully coexist with powerful concepts, streamlined technology and notation, sophisticated methods, and high powered electronic aids -Englebart, prophesying You couldn't develop and improve the system without seeing how a large and diverse community used it in practice. -Robert Fano, on the development of time sharing The spirit at that meeting was as good as it gets - the most civilized, ecumenical, incredibly supportive atmosphere you could want. People would cheer you on even if they didn't agree with you, just because they loved the fact that you were good -Alan Kay on the early ARPA community We felt strongly that only a very small group could do the project on that timescale . . . I don't remember such a thing as a weekly progress meeting. We were more in tune with progress than that. -Dave Walden on the development of the IMP, the first packet switching node To Lick, the obvious solution to the software crisis was to apply better and more interactive computing . . . when the systems are truly complex, programming has to be a process of exploration and discovery [H]ire the smartest people you can find and give them their head - but let them know who's paying the bills . . . it wasn't enough to hire a bunch of super smart individuals, you had to build a community, a culture, and an environment of innovation. You had to give your people the kind of challenge that would light a fire in their eyes, that would generate an atmosphere of non-stop intellectual excitement, that would let them feel in their gut that this is where the action is. You had to provide them with lavish resources - everything they needed to do the job. And through it all, you had to keep your bottom line guys at bay so your guys could have the freedom to make mistakes -Jack Goldman, founder of PARC