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For those who don't know, Maurice Wilkes invented subroutines and microcode. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Wilkes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice
by neonate 7y ago
For those who don't know, Maurice Wilkes invented subroutines and microcode.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Wilkes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Wilkes
- Ididntdothis 7y agoI always find it fascinating things like subroutines that are obvious to us now had to be invented by someone. You can easily imagine an alternate history where computing would look totally differently.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago> I always find it fascinating things like subroutines that are obvious to us now had to be invented by someone. This is just the anthropic principle. The fact that somebody was first doesn't mean something wasn't obvious. I like to complain about De Morgan's Laws, which state that: (1) If neither of two things is true, then they're both false. (And vice versa.) (2) If two things aren't both true, then one or both of them are false. (And vice versa.) Augustus De Morgan lived in the 1800s, but obviously these laws were well known for many millennia before him. Having these laws named after you is the honorable-mention-in-the-Special-Olympics of making discoveries. It's an insult to the concept of naming things after people.
- spectramax 7y agoThat's a brilliant way to argue about it, makes total sense. What would you say is invented by total happenstance and the world would be totally different if the person had not?
- Ididntdothis 7y agoI would say alphabets, languages, religions, fashions. Numbering systems? Is there an advantage in going base 10 vs base 11? Now that I think about it base 8 may be better.
- patrec 7y ago> Is there an advantage in going base 10 vs base 11? Yes, you can divide by powers of two and five and exactly represent the result. When did you last feel an urge to divide something into 11 parts? > Now that I think about it base 8 may be better. Well, that would have given us nicer shutter-times and screw sizes, "Megabytes", max_ints and better floats for money calculations as well as slightly better numerical properties. But personally I think 6 or 30 would have been the way to go. Being able to divide nicely by the first two primes seems pretty practically useful to me.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago> When did you last feel an urge to divide something into 11 parts? When did you last feel an urge to divide something into 5 parts?
- spectramax 7y agoArguably, Duodecimal would have been better. 12 is divisble by a large number of factors and it has some more interesting aspects outlined here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duodecimal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duodecimal
- _bxg1 7y agoCame here to say this. We got 10 instead because we have 10 fingers to count on.
- 7y ago
- jsinai 7y agoI once asked a mathematics professor why so many obvious or natural results (“Cauchy-Swchartz” being the most contentious) are named after people, when something more descriptive would do. His response: “It makes it easier to refer to those theorems by some memorable name.” Not very satisfying but utilitarian.
- tobr 7y agoI’d like to propose Thaumasiotes’ Law: > The fact that somebody was first doesn't mean something wasn't obvious.
- freeflight 7y agoThat reminds me of the argument of whether math is invented or discovered.
- DEADBEEFC0FFEE 7y agoLots a things are invented multiple times. It's more common that one might presume. I'm generally wary of claim that someone was first to invent fairly obvious things.
- Ididntdothis 7y agoIn physics people will eventually find stuff because they are law of nature. There is no law of nature that subroutines should exist so it’s very possible they would never be invented and people would do things in a different way.