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The GP is talking about (future) researchers in particular. Still, there’s a tremendous historical myopia among practicing software engineers as well, leading u

The GP is talking about (future) researchers in particular. Still, there’s a tremendous historical myopia among practicing software engineers as well, leading us as a field to reinvent old ideas in new clothes every ten years or so.

wernercd 6y ago
Researchers might have more use for history... but day to day, in the field, programmers? not so much. I would think it's the difference between math researchers and accountants... You don't need to know history to balance a check book.
- tremon 6y ago
  Programmers in the field have little use for computer science in general. You don't need to know anything about cyclomatic complexity when assembling a shiny javascript widget. Until you do, of course. At which point it's clear you should've known about it years ago.
  - wernercd 6y ago
    cyclomatic complexity and computer science isn't history. Not sure where the disconnect is because at no point have I said you shouldn't learn how to do your job correctly - and understanding Big O, SOLID, YANGI, etc are all important to know... but have nothing to do with history. So again... history isn't needed to be a good engineer. And being a good engineer and KISS programming is possible without understanding 100 years of history.
- Sharlin 6y ago
  The difference is that the way to balance a check book doesn't change every five years, or these days more like every year. Maybe if programmers knew a bit more about history, they wouldn't need to reinvent it so often and could be more like accountants. But programmers don't want to be accountants, they want to use new and shiny things even when it's not the pragmatic choice, even when it would be better engineering to understand things in a broader context, to understand the history behind these "new" (actually old) things.
  - wernercd 6y ago
    Accounting has been around for hundreds of years. The reason it doesn't change? Because it's not a "new" field. Same for stuff like construction and cooking... stuff that's been around a very long time has become rather stable and of course it isn't going to be "reinvented every five years". > when it would be better engineering again... I don't need to understand history to understand Big O and which algorithm to use in the right circumstances or when procedural programming is proffered to functional. At no point in my career have I ever NEEDED history to decide which library to use, which sorting algorithm is suitable and how to create functional apis or windows services. History is nice to know... but still 100% not needed at any stage of the process. I'm not sure where the disconnect is because I like history... I like learning about American history, world history, programming history... but none of that has ever been relevant in any of my jobs when it comes to day to day decisions and projects. "don't reinvent the wheel" is a separate topic and while I can agree that many things get reinvented - computers are still a very young industry compared to stuff like accounting and architecture.
andi999 6y ago
So what? Sometimes ideas have to be reinvented, maybe this time they succeed. There could be two reasons why old ideas (talking about Software here) didnt succeed, one is Hardware wasnt capeable, the other is 'they didnt cross the chasm' - both might be different now (third option, the idea is bad, then one shouldnt do it again of course).
- Sharlin 6y ago
  You're still assuming a linear model of history. My point was that history is cyclical, the same trends come and go. Static vs dynamic typing. Thin client vs thick client. Local vs distributed. Key-value vs relational. Monolithic vs micro*. And so on. Yes, sometimes these have to do with changing requirements or hardware capabilities, but more often they're just about a new generation wanting shiny new things rather than boring old things. Except that the shiny new things were the boring old things of the previous iteration. Many ideas of the yesteryear were not bad or even infeasible, indeed they were successfully put into real-world use. Until the tide changed and they became unfashionable for whatever reason. And then they became fashionable again, but without a view of the history there's little synthesis of ideas, little learning from past experiences beyond the current cycle.
  - jonjacky 6y ago
    This cycle was called the "Wheel of Reincarnation" in this 1968 paper by Myer and Sutherland about display processors. http://cva.stanford.edu/classes/cs99s/papers/myer-sutherland-design-of-display-processors.pdf http://cva.stanford.edu/classes/cs99s/papers/myer-sutherland...

wernercd 6y ago

Researchers might have more use for history... but day to day, in the field, programmers? not so much. I would think it's the difference between math researchers and accountants... You don't need to know history to balance a check book.

tremon 6y ago
Programmers in the field have little use for computer science in general. You don't need to know anything about cyclomatic complexity when assembling a shiny javascript widget. Until you do, of course. At which point it's clear you should've known about it years ago.
- wernercd 6y ago
  cyclomatic complexity and computer science isn't history. Not sure where the disconnect is because at no point have I said you shouldn't learn how to do your job correctly - and understanding Big O, SOLID, YANGI, etc are all important to know... but have nothing to do with history. So again... history isn't needed to be a good engineer. And being a good engineer and KISS programming is possible without understanding 100 years of history.
Sharlin 6y ago
The difference is that the way to balance a check book doesn't change every five years, or these days more like every year. Maybe if programmers knew a bit more about history, they wouldn't need to reinvent it so often and could be more like accountants. But programmers don't want to be accountants, they want to use new and shiny things even when it's not the pragmatic choice, even when it would be better engineering to understand things in a broader context, to understand the history behind these "new" (actually old) things.
- wernercd 6y ago
  Accounting has been around for hundreds of years. The reason it doesn't change? Because it's not a "new" field. Same for stuff like construction and cooking... stuff that's been around a very long time has become rather stable and of course it isn't going to be "reinvented every five years". > when it would be better engineering again... I don't need to understand history to understand Big O and which algorithm to use in the right circumstances or when procedural programming is proffered to functional. At no point in my career have I ever NEEDED history to decide which library to use, which sorting algorithm is suitable and how to create functional apis or windows services. History is nice to know... but still 100% not needed at any stage of the process. I'm not sure where the disconnect is because I like history... I like learning about American history, world history, programming history... but none of that has ever been relevant in any of my jobs when it comes to day to day decisions and projects. "don't reinvent the wheel" is a separate topic and while I can agree that many things get reinvented - computers are still a very young industry compared to stuff like accounting and architecture.

andi999 6y ago

So what? Sometimes ideas have to be reinvented, maybe this time they succeed. There could be two reasons why old ideas (talking about Software here) didnt succeed, one is Hardware wasnt capeable, the other is 'they didnt cross the chasm' - both might be different now (third option, the idea is bad, then one shouldnt do it again of course).

Sharlin 6y ago
You're still assuming a linear model of history. My point was that history is cyclical, the same trends come and go. Static vs dynamic typing. Thin client vs thick client. Local vs distributed. Key-value vs relational. Monolithic vs micro*. And so on. Yes, sometimes these have to do with changing requirements or hardware capabilities, but more often they're just about a new generation wanting shiny new things rather than boring old things. Except that the shiny new things were the boring old things of the previous iteration. Many ideas of the yesteryear were not bad or even infeasible, indeed they were successfully put into real-world use. Until the tide changed and they became unfashionable for whatever reason. And then they became fashionable again, but without a view of the history there's little synthesis of ideas, little learning from past experiences beyond the current cycle.
- jonjacky 6y ago
  This cycle was called the "Wheel of Reincarnation" in this 1968 paper by Myer and Sutherland about display processors. http://cva.stanford.edu/classes/cs99s/papers/myer-sutherland-design-of-display-processors.pdf http://cva.stanford.edu/classes/cs99s/papers/myer-sutherland...