6 ms·
Not as famous as they should be (2021)
- simonswords82 4y agoNice article but I suspect a lot of people who have worked on projects that advance an area of technology, or indeed civilisation, are quite happy with their anonymity.
- d_tr 4y agoI have the same suspicion as you. I just think it's unfortunate that people know mostly about the billionaires and their tweets.
- ncmncm 4y agoHal Laning, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Halcombe_Laning https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Halcombe_Laning , made the first compiler. (Grace Hopper's thing did not parse source code. She just described it as a compiler.) He also coded the OS on the Apollo Guidance Computer that saved the day and mission, during the Apollo 11 moon landing, by rebooting into saved state and resuming real-time control of the vehicle without a hiccup, when operator errors repeatedly overloaded it. (Margaret Hamilton is often given credit for this, but she programmed other stuff.) He never got the Turing Award he so richly deserved.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- amelius 4y agoWhat would be the opposite? I.e., people more famous in computing than they should be.
- adwn 4y agoI suspect that any answer to this question will be a downvote magnet... Anyways, I nominate * Eric S. Raymond * Robert C. Martin ("Uncle Bob") * Alan Kay
- hardware2win 4y agoWhy the last one?
- bitwize 4y agoAlan Kay was the idea man. He situated Smalltalk in a context of, this is programming as media, as a form of expression and a means to learn and teach, and not just an engineering activity; when it comes to Smalltalk, Dan Ingalls did much of the implementation work.
- NoraCodes 4y agoI agree that ESR and Martin are quite overrated, but why Kay? And why call out that you expect downvotes?
- adwn 4y agoThe "downvotes magnet" thing was tongue-in-cheek – any name is either not famous enough, making it a bad answer, or famous enough to have lots of fans that will disapprove of the nomination. > why Kay? I don't think his actual, lasting influences justify the near-mythical status bestowed on him by his disciples. Not saying he's completely unimportant, just that he's overrated. I'm not very confident on that assessment though, which is why I listed him last (and ESR first).
- dachryn 4y agoTim Berners Lee is widely accredited as the inventor of the internet, but everyone ignores Robert Caillau, who arguably created the actual internet. Tim B Lee mainly created the hypertext paradigm of sending messages, and Robert worked out how to actually do it and created the concept of a browser. Anyway they both agreed at the time they had an equal share in creating 'the internet', but the media seems to have long forgotten about the non-english guy. so yeah, either TBL is too famous and in your list, or is R. Caillau not famous enough and belonging in the list from this post? Not upto me to decide, but anyway he should not be forgotten
- macintux 4y agoI can’t let that pass without the necessary pedantry: the Internet long predated either contribution.
- binarymax 4y agoIndeed, conflation of the web with the internet is a sticking point for me too! I'd like to shout out Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn, Yogen Dalal, and Carl Sunshine who made TCP for ARPANET: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc675 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc675
- fanf2 4y agoThe photo in this tweet sums it up nicely https://twitter.com/nixcraft/status/1204166408730361856 https://twitter.com/nixcraft/status/1204166408730361856
- dachryn 4y agoah well indeed, slip up of mine. I meant the World Wide Web, the WWW, as we know it. The idea of using the pre-existing internet (which did in fact exist as you say it) and how to shape messages on it to create something like the www, that was their actual invention. Take something, and use it in a creative new way, is basically what they did
- Arkhaine_kupo 4y ago
- h2odragon 4y agoSteve Jobs and Bill Gates.
- isolli 4y agoI nominate Shiva Ayyadurai, self-proclaimed inventor of email: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva_Ayyadurai#%22EMAIL%22_invention_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva_Ayyadurai#%22EMAIL%22_in...
- the_lonely_road 4y agoWeirdly negative tone towards Andy Warhol for seemingly no reason, otherwise interesting article. The guy (Warhol) was almost 60 years old when the Amiga came out and already a pretty famous name.
- aa-jv 4y agoHe was famous for ripping off other artists' work, yeah. I think thats why he's not considered in such flattering light. I know many well-trained artists who agree that he was a hack and plagiarist - but that was his thing, after all...
- haskellandchill 4y agowarhol was an accomplished and talented draftsman
- aa-jv 4y agoHe gained fame mostly for his ripoffs, regardless of his skills.
- AlwaysRock 4y agoWeird that what you call ripping off many call the most recognized pieces of modern art.
- aa-jv 4y agoCritics, maybe. Judges, no: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/05/arts/design/warhol-copyright-appeals-court.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/05/arts/design/warhol-copyri...
- AlwaysRock 4y agoAh one judges decision on one piece out of how many?
- swayvil 4y agoForget fame. Massive financial compensation is better.
- gnfargbl 4y agoSomeone who is quite well-known, but maybe doesn't get all the credit they really deserve, is Sophie Wilson. Not only did she design the ARM instruction set, but before that she spent fifteen years working on BBC BASIC, the language that so many of us in the UK first learnt to program in. Not sure I would have had a career in the tech sector without her.
- klelatti 4y agoAgreed on the sentiment but 'fifteen years' on BBC Basic can't be right. More like a couple of years. Great presentation from Sophie here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lOnpQgn-9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lOnpQgn-9s
- ry4nolson 4y agoAccording to wikipedia: >She subsequently joined Acorn Computers and was instrumental in designing the BBC Micro, including the BBC BASIC programming language whose development she led for the next 15 years.
- klelatti 4y agoMaybe, but not before she designed the Arm instruction set which is what the parent comment says (possibly I'm being pedantic but it does make a mess of the whole chronology).
- gnfargbl 4y agoYou're correct, I got the chronology wrong. From a more careful reading of Wikipedia it looks like ~2 yrs writing most of BBC BASIC, then designing the ARM instruction set, whilst at the same time maintaining BASIC (for another 15 years). Thinking about all this made me remember https://archive.org/details/arm-archimedes-assembly-language-the-complete-programming-course-se-covers-risc-os/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/arm-archimedes-assembly-language..., which as I recall was a pretty decent introduction to how microprocessors work (of the RISC variety, anyway).
- h2odragon 4y agoVint Cerf is often referred to as "the Father of the Internet"; I suspect at his insentience. Really tho it was Jon Postel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Postel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Postel
- LukeShu 4y agoFrom your link: > [Jon Postel] was referred to as the "god of the Internet" I think that beats Cerf's "father of the Internet". But really, IME (but maybe I'm just a nerd) Postel is at least as famous as Cerf.
- convolvatron 4y agoI've never heard that. Jon was just reallly nice person who genuinely wanted to help. personally I think he would have been a little offended oh, I'm right https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Postel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Postel
- LeifCarrotson 4y agoIs insentience a bit of parapraxis? I expect you meant to say at his insistence.
- samiam_iam 4y agoIDK, insentience certainly works too, and maybe better. Plus I learned two new words today. All good. Carry on.
- h2odragon 4y agoYou are correct, that is an error. Serendipity perhaps :)
- ghaff 4y agoI can pretty much guarantee you that, for every person who is well-known for "inventing" something (especially in the 20th century onward), there are generally a whole lot of other people on the same project--or who were working in parallel on similar concepts elsewhere or who created something that was refined by the invention--who deserve at least a passing nod as well.
- loph 4y agoThis guy invented the MOSFET, which is the underpinnings of pretty much every modern microprocessor. Nobody knows his name. He is "Not as Famous as He Should Be." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_M._Atalla https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_M._Atalla
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- sheikheddy 4y agoWrote a paper about him for a history class in college, nice to see it pop up on HN.
- cjbgkagh 4y agoI generally assume credit is poorly assigned. In my former job as an applied researcher letting my boss get the credit for my ideas was practically part of the job description. My former boss has a bad memory so he’d tell me his great ideas forgetting they were mine. Instead of correcting him I’d be ‘great idea boss, we should totally build that’ - and that’s how I got to build a ton of cool shit.
- derbOac 4y agoI have the same perspective, and have had the exact same experience with supervisors "forgetting where they get ideas from" (not just me but also others working with them). One related thing that's been on my mind a lot lately is people or projects who are/were ahead of their time, and as a result didn't really maybe get enough credit as they should have. Sometimes being "ahead of one's time" suggests someone or something eventually getting a lot of attention for seeing things before everyone else. But sometimes I think people and projects ahead of their time just get forgotten and/or lost because they were never really supported enough to begin with. I guess in general I often feel as if credit is as much about the audience as it is the creator. If someone has an innovation but no one else understands it, it's falling on deaf ears and often is lost.
- cjbgkagh 4y agoI do think there is an insane amount of talent that is squandard due to inefficiencies in social organization. I don't know the solution and worry that it'll actually get worse instead of better.
- saltcured 4y agoI've been through enough cycles to develop an even more detached/depersonalized view of it... As you say, the credit is an observer's construct, but I think sometimes the innovators are also just the audience of an emergent concept. Put another way, I think the whole narrative of ideas "coming from" an individual is often a self-indulgent fiction. I've seen too many R&D topics where the supposedly novel ideas seem to be inevitable memes. The self-styled sole inventors are often one of many seeing the same insights at the same time, because they are all hosting the same prerequisite background knowledge. There are also often lots of these ideas floating around simultaneously. A significant meta (or negative?) thought process is to defer or suppress most of the ideas and focus on a few. Sometimes, we might think to credit the boss with the wisdom of deciding _when_ an idea deserves attention. That business decision is often more impactful than the juniors' many heartfelt flashes of insight. But this meta-analysis can go further. Often there are different labs all in slightly different phases and some are "before their time" and some, perhaps, "too late". Was the boss at the goldilocks lab really more innovative? Or are all the players merely parts of a broader monte carlo search method...?
- aidenn0 4y ago> Avril Harrison So now I can put a name to the person whose art constantly made me feel bad about my Deluxe Paint skills :)
- gompertz 4y agoRalph Griswold and Gary Kildall should be on this list. Complete legends.