6 ms·

What a pity. I sense a black bar coming. The last few weeks have been terrible, one icon after another has fallen. What is different from other fields is that

by 0x12 15y ago

What a pity. I sense a black bar coming. The last few weeks have been terrible, one icon after another has fallen. What is different from other fields is that computing is still a young enough field that almost all of its luminaries except for the earliest ones are still alive. I fear the avalanche has only barely begun, and at some point the frequency of these will become high enough that either we will stop to notice or we will have that black bar on here more or less permanently.

TruthElixirX 15y ago
Eventually, I think, there will cease to be icons within the industry. What we have now are the people who invented the internet/computers and the basic components. The people who are doing the inventing now are just as smart, but they aren't creating fundamental things, they are improving on an existing system. We don't say, "engineer team y invented the iCore series of processors." we sort of just say "Intel is coming out with a new set of processors." I'm not sure if I am making my point very clear. :\
- qq66 15y ago
  I think the distinction you're highlighting is between the people who start the giant companies of the industry, and the people who keep those companies successful. Everyone knows that Noyce/Moore/Grove built Intel, not many people knows who runs it today. The '50s computing leaders (mostly academics) are in their old age, the '70s leaders (academics and businessmen) are heading into retirement (except for Jobs unfortunately), and the later leaders (Google, Facebook) are still going strong.
- redthrowaway 15y ago
  Between Gates, Zuckerberg, Larry and Sergey, Torvalds, RMS, Knuth, and a few others, there're still plenty of icons left and so I don't forsee your scenario happening anytime soon. I am generally an optimist, and think the number of icons to come is far greater than those who have come and gone.
  - jc4p 15y ago
    If any of those people die before October ends I'm blaming you directly.
  - jrockway 15y ago
    Is it really fair to compare Zuckerberg to Knuth? Zuckerberg made a PHP site for people to stalk their classmates. Knuth wrote TeX, hundreds of papers, and a series of books considered among the 100 most important scientific works of the 20th century. http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/100-or-so-books-that-shaped-a-century-of-science http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/100-or-so-boo... Zuckerberg is definitely a successful dude that one can look up to. But in terms of advancing the field of computing, he hasn't done a whole lot yet.
    - redthrowaway 15y ago
      > in terms of advancing the field of computing, he hasn't done a whole lot yet. Theory, no. Practice, oh Hell yes. Facebook changed the game, for everyone. The "Social Revolution" has changed the face of business, investing, interpersonal communication, friendships, revolutions... the list goes on. Maybe Zuck was just in the right place at the right time, but he made the most of it and his company's impact has been enormous.
    - rayiner 15y ago
      Your comment presupposes that advances in mathematics are more important than advances in social communication. Is Mozart less iconic because his achievements were in music?
      - icandoitbetter 15y ago
        Not sure why you're being downvoted. Somehow people have this picture of mathematics as this universal body of knowledge, but that couldn't be further from the truth. They are as earthly as anything else we've been doing as a human race. For an interesting perspective on mathematics from a cognitive-scientific point of view, check out George Lakoff's book "Where Mathematics Comes From."
- protagonist_h 15y ago
  Fundamental inventions and discoveries are never recognized right away. That's why Nobel prizes are usually awarded for a work done several decades ago. The guys who do revolutionary work in computing right now do exist, we just haven't recognized them yet.
- InclinedPlane 15y ago
  I disagree, here's why: First, the software engineering field is still very immature. The tools and terminology in use are still very primitive. Studies seeking to identify best practices via evidence are still few and far between. Worse yet, known best practices with substantial evidence behind them are widely ignored in the industry on average. I believe there is still a lot of room for new techniques, and new models of software engineering, which will serve to guide developers for generations. Second, we are at a critical juncture in programming languages. There are a lot of new languages gaining popularity, and a lot of older languages seeing substantial change. The fundamental paradigms in use by the average programmer are changing (becoming increasingly more functional, generally). Meanwhile, there are even more advanced concepts on the horizon (monads, for example) which are still not accessible to most programmers. There's a huge opportunity there for the next generation of languages to increase the accessibility of those advanced techniques. Additionally, we're in the midst of a revolution in terms of compiler technology. We are seeing things like modular compilers, very advanced run-times capable of incredible speed improvements, cutting edge garbage collectors, and the potential for massive parallelization on the desktop. Again, there's a huge potential there for some very fundamental innovations. Third, we are no where near the end of the line in computing hardware. Over the next few decades we could see some very crazy things. 3D micro-chips putting trillions of transistors into every cpu. Even more massive parallelization than what we've seen today. RSFQ processors that could put petaflops computing power on a single chip. MRAM married to processor cores leading to breakthroughs in performance. Non-Von Neumann architectures enabled by memory and processing power being mixed together. FPGAs with billions of gates with the capability to operate and reconfigure at multi-gigahertz speed. Asynchronous CPUs. And these are just things at a very fundamental level. There's still a huge potential for lots of innovations in the software and hardware space closer to the end-user. There's plenty of room for more icons in the future.
- alf 15y ago
  People have been about the same intelligence for a long time. Steve, Dennis, and John were no smarter than their predecessors, they were just applying their intelligence in an area other smart people weren't looking at. Woz was designing calculators before he designed the Apple II. So what's the next area a smart person can make a big difference in?
foenix 15y ago
Death is the only guarantee in life and in fact is necessary for human ecology. I too am deeply saddened by this loss, but am supremely grateful that a man like John McCarthy was able to contribute to the humanity's knowledge. May his work be the foundation in many more advances in human understanding, and may his void be filled by someone who respects this journey. RIP, John.
- dlss 15y ago
  > Death is necessary for human ecology Ugh, not now. References or stop talking. I have my fingers crossed he was signed up for cryonics. This is tragic.
  - phillmv 15y ago
    It's how any species gets to iterate. The old have to die off to make room for the young.
    - papa_bear 15y ago
      Right, but if there is actually any selection for aging and death in organisms (maybe there is, I'm not sure), it's not useful anymore. There's a lot of evidence that there's no longer genetic selection acting on the human population, and it's therefore no longer true that our children should be genetically superior.
      - zokier 15y ago
        Maybe not genetically superior, but certainly culturally stronger. Old people have old ways of thinking.
        irahul 15y ago
        And the way of thinking isn't constant. It changes over time. A 15 year old you, a 25 year old you and a 50 year old you are all different people. A 500 year old you will most probably be a different person. There are people who resist change and disapprove of all viewpoints other their own, but I doubt it's an age thing. I see a lot of young people opposing gay marriages for instance.
ternaryoperator 15y ago
What you're seeing is actually the death of the second generation of great comp sci minds, IMO. The first modern generation included von Neumann (b. 1903), Hopper (b. 1906), Turing (b. 1912), and others. McCarthy (1927), Knuth (1932), Hoare (1934) etc. are of the next generation. Obviously, you can cut generations on any arbitraty line and YMMV, but the 15-20 year gap seems a reasonable grouping, IMO.
- arethuza 15y ago
  Would that make Leibniz part of the zeroth generation? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Leibniz#Computation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Leibniz#Computation
  - khafra 15y ago
    He's pre-generational, along with people like Ramon Llull and Hero of Alexandria (who, however, did not have such a heroically unusual distribution of letters in his last name).

by 0x12 15y ago

TruthElixirX 15y ago

Eventually, I think, there will cease to be icons within the industry. What we have now are the people who invented the internet/computers and the basic components. The people who are doing the inventing now are just as smart, but they aren't creating fundamental things, they are improving on an existing system. We don't say, "engineer team y invented the iCore series of processors." we sort of just say "Intel is coming out with a new set of processors." I'm not sure if I am making my point very clear. :\

qq66 15y ago
I think the distinction you're highlighting is between the people who start the giant companies of the industry, and the people who keep those companies successful. Everyone knows that Noyce/Moore/Grove built Intel, not many people knows who runs it today. The '50s computing leaders (mostly academics) are in their old age, the '70s leaders (academics and businessmen) are heading into retirement (except for Jobs unfortunately), and the later leaders (Google, Facebook) are still going strong.
redthrowaway 15y ago
Between Gates, Zuckerberg, Larry and Sergey, Torvalds, RMS, Knuth, and a few others, there're still plenty of icons left and so I don't forsee your scenario happening anytime soon. I am generally an optimist, and think the number of icons to come is far greater than those who have come and gone.
- jc4p 15y ago
  If any of those people die before October ends I'm blaming you directly.
- jrockway 15y ago
  Is it really fair to compare Zuckerberg to Knuth? Zuckerberg made a PHP site for people to stalk their classmates. Knuth wrote TeX, hundreds of papers, and a series of books considered among the 100 most important scientific works of the 20th century. http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/100-or-so-books-that-shaped-a-century-of-science http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/100-or-so-boo... Zuckerberg is definitely a successful dude that one can look up to. But in terms of advancing the field of computing, he hasn't done a whole lot yet.
  - redthrowaway 15y ago
    > in terms of advancing the field of computing, he hasn't done a whole lot yet. Theory, no. Practice, oh Hell yes. Facebook changed the game, for everyone. The "Social Revolution" has changed the face of business, investing, interpersonal communication, friendships, revolutions... the list goes on. Maybe Zuck was just in the right place at the right time, but he made the most of it and his company's impact has been enormous.
  - rayiner 15y ago
    Your comment presupposes that advances in mathematics are more important than advances in social communication. Is Mozart less iconic because his achievements were in music?
    - icandoitbetter 15y ago
      Not sure why you're being downvoted. Somehow people have this picture of mathematics as this universal body of knowledge, but that couldn't be further from the truth. They are as earthly as anything else we've been doing as a human race. For an interesting perspective on mathematics from a cognitive-scientific point of view, check out George Lakoff's book "Where Mathematics Comes From."
protagonist_h 15y ago
Fundamental inventions and discoveries are never recognized right away. That's why Nobel prizes are usually awarded for a work done several decades ago. The guys who do revolutionary work in computing right now do exist, we just haven't recognized them yet.
InclinedPlane 15y ago
I disagree, here's why: First, the software engineering field is still very immature. The tools and terminology in use are still very primitive. Studies seeking to identify best practices via evidence are still few and far between. Worse yet, known best practices with substantial evidence behind them are widely ignored in the industry on average. I believe there is still a lot of room for new techniques, and new models of software engineering, which will serve to guide developers for generations. Second, we are at a critical juncture in programming languages. There are a lot of new languages gaining popularity, and a lot of older languages seeing substantial change. The fundamental paradigms in use by the average programmer are changing (becoming increasingly more functional, generally). Meanwhile, there are even more advanced concepts on the horizon (monads, for example) which are still not accessible to most programmers. There's a huge opportunity there for the next generation of languages to increase the accessibility of those advanced techniques. Additionally, we're in the midst of a revolution in terms of compiler technology. We are seeing things like modular compilers, very advanced run-times capable of incredible speed improvements, cutting edge garbage collectors, and the potential for massive parallelization on the desktop. Again, there's a huge potential there for some very fundamental innovations. Third, we are no where near the end of the line in computing hardware. Over the next few decades we could see some very crazy things. 3D micro-chips putting trillions of transistors into every cpu. Even more massive parallelization than what we've seen today. RSFQ processors that could put petaflops computing power on a single chip. MRAM married to processor cores leading to breakthroughs in performance. Non-Von Neumann architectures enabled by memory and processing power being mixed together. FPGAs with billions of gates with the capability to operate and reconfigure at multi-gigahertz speed. Asynchronous CPUs. And these are just things at a very fundamental level. There's still a huge potential for lots of innovations in the software and hardware space closer to the end-user. There's plenty of room for more icons in the future.
alf 15y ago
People have been about the same intelligence for a long time. Steve, Dennis, and John were no smarter than their predecessors, they were just applying their intelligence in an area other smart people weren't looking at. Woz was designing calculators before he designed the Apple II. So what's the next area a smart person can make a big difference in?

foenix 15y ago

Death is the only guarantee in life and in fact is necessary for human ecology. I too am deeply saddened by this loss, but am supremely grateful that a man like John McCarthy was able to contribute to the humanity's knowledge. May his work be the foundation in many more advances in human understanding, and may his void be filled by someone who respects this journey. RIP, John.

dlss 15y ago
> Death is necessary for human ecology Ugh, not now. References or stop talking. I have my fingers crossed he was signed up for cryonics. This is tragic.
- phillmv 15y ago
  It's how any species gets to iterate. The old have to die off to make room for the young.
  - papa_bear 15y ago
    Right, but if there is actually any selection for aging and death in organisms (maybe there is, I'm not sure), it's not useful anymore. There's a lot of evidence that there's no longer genetic selection acting on the human population, and it's therefore no longer true that our children should be genetically superior.
    - zokier 15y ago
      Maybe not genetically superior, but certainly culturally stronger. Old people have old ways of thinking.
      - irahul 15y ago
        And the way of thinking isn't constant. It changes over time. A 15 year old you, a 25 year old you and a 50 year old you are all different people. A 500 year old you will most probably be a different person. There are people who resist change and disapprove of all viewpoints other their own, but I doubt it's an age thing. I see a lot of young people opposing gay marriages for instance.

ternaryoperator 15y ago

What you're seeing is actually the death of the second generation of great comp sci minds, IMO. The first modern generation included von Neumann (b. 1903), Hopper (b. 1906), Turing (b. 1912), and others. McCarthy (1927), Knuth (1932), Hoare (1934) etc. are of the next generation. Obviously, you can cut generations on any arbitraty line and YMMV, but the 15-20 year gap seems a reasonable grouping, IMO.

arethuza 15y ago
Would that make Leibniz part of the zeroth generation? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Leibniz#Computation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Leibniz#Computation
- khafra 15y ago
  He's pre-generational, along with people like Ramon Llull and Hero of Alexandria (who, however, did not have such a heroically unusual distribution of letters in his last name).