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I only read the historical part, and I got caught by this line: "Nevertheless Alonzo had regular contacts with other Princeton inhabitants. Among them were Ala

by ced 20y ago

I only read the historical part, and I got caught by this line: "Nevertheless Alonzo had regular contacts with other Princeton inhabitants. Among them were Alan Turing, John von Neumann, and Kurt Godel." Wow. Where can you find that today?

dpapathanasiou 20y ago
Google comes close (from Paul Tyma's blog): "At Google, you never know who your interviewers are going to be. If you say you're a Java or C++ expert that rates a 10 - you darn well better be - because you never know - your next interviewer could be Josh Bloch, Matt Austern, Guido van Rossum, or Ken Thompson." http://paultyma.blogspot.com/2007/03/howto-pass-silicon-valley-software.html http://paultyma.blogspot.com/2007/03/howto-pass-silicon-valley-software.html
- ced 20y ago
  Apart from possibly Ken, none of them compares IMO to the Princeton list, not by a long-shot. I often wonder why there seems to be less scientific genius around, and there are three options: 1. Problems these days require teams (meh) 2. The geniuses are there, they just never get recognition until much later 3. They're off doing technical work rather than scientific research. I.e.: they do startups, not publish articles. Can you imagine that your project might be up against a modern-day Einstein? 4. I'm out of touch. Geniuses are still there, in plain sight.
  - imp 20y ago
    I've thought the same thing myself and I usually assume that it's a combination of #2/#4. The geniuses are out there, and those who work directly with them know that they're geniuses, but they won't get wide-spread recognition until much later. Probably because they're working on ideas that won't (can't) be implemented until much later. Actually, it might be that there are many groups of geniuses out there, but only those whose work ends up being useful (depending on random future events) are later regarded as geniuses. Like the article said, the demand for computers didn't really increase until WWII.

by ced 20y ago

dpapathanasiou 20y ago

Google comes close (from Paul Tyma's blog): "At Google, you never know who your interviewers are going to be. If you say you're a Java or C++ expert that rates a 10 - you darn well better be - because you never know - your next interviewer could be Josh Bloch, Matt Austern, Guido van Rossum, or Ken Thompson." http://paultyma.blogspot.com/2007/03/howto-pass-silicon-valley-software.html http://paultyma.blogspot.com/2007/03/howto-pass-silicon-valley-software.html

ced 20y ago
Apart from possibly Ken, none of them compares IMO to the Princeton list, not by a long-shot. I often wonder why there seems to be less scientific genius around, and there are three options: 1. Problems these days require teams (meh) 2. The geniuses are there, they just never get recognition until much later 3. They're off doing technical work rather than scientific research. I.e.: they do startups, not publish articles. Can you imagine that your project might be up against a modern-day Einstein? 4. I'm out of touch. Geniuses are still there, in plain sight.
- imp 20y ago
  I've thought the same thing myself and I usually assume that it's a combination of #2/#4. The geniuses are out there, and those who work directly with them know that they're geniuses, but they won't get wide-spread recognition until much later. Probably because they're working on ideas that won't (can't) be implemented until much later. Actually, it might be that there are many groups of geniuses out there, but only those whose work ends up being useful (depending on random future events) are later regarded as geniuses. Like the article said, the demand for computers didn't really increase until WWII.