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He predicted 'The Cloud' in 1976 and we're just catching up now, "Engelbart slipped into relative obscurity after 1976. Several of his researchers became aliena

He predicted 'The Cloud' in 1976 and we're just catching up now, "Engelbart slipped into relative obscurity after 1976. Several of his researchers became alienated from him and left his organization for Xerox PARC, in part due to frustration, and in part due to differing views of the future of computing. Engelbart saw the future in collaborative, networked, timeshare (client-server) computers, which younger programmers rejected in favor of the personal computer. The conflict was both technical and social: the younger programmers came from an era where centralized power was highly suspect, and personal computing was just barely on the horizon." ( Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Engelbart http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Engelbart )

ThomPete 13y ago
Hmm so a kind of liberal vs. socialist philosophy of technology. You just gave me a new perspective on things. Thanks!
- triplesec 13y ago
  entirely not such a gross simplification
  - ThomPete 13y ago
    hence the expression "kind of"
- saraid216 13y ago
  I'd suggest checking out Wikipedia, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and Encyclopedia Britannica on the term "communitarianism". It's far more relevant than applying the word "socialist" without meaning.
  - ThomPete 13y ago
    That depends what you put in that word. To me socialism is not a bad thing.
    - saraid216 13y ago
      To me, socialism isn't meaningfully comparable to liberalism. It's apples and oranges.
      - ThomPete 13y ago
        Well then you need to change your perspective I guess. Of course it's comparable. They are both political systems.
        saraid216 13y ago
        Socialism isn't a political system. Neither, come to that, is liberalism. Socialism is an economic system. Liberalism is a political philosophy. How about, instead of using labels like "liberal vs socialist" to express your point, you actually describe what you mean? Because you clearly haven't conveyed the contrast between Engelbart and the "younger programmers" that you wanted to.
        ThomPete 13y ago
        Socialism is as much a political philosophy and system as it is an economic system. You seem to like Wikipedia, so I suggest you go read up on it. And please read what was actually written. I was not expressing a point I was thanking someone for giving me a new perspective on things. Whether your understanding of the words socialism & liberalism allow you to understand that is really not of my concern.
Uhhrrr 13y ago
Heh - I think the younger programmers were right on that one.
- robotresearcher 13y ago
  They were both right. The web brought them together. We didn't have to choose after all. I have a fabulously powerful personal workstation on my desk, a slimmer, more modest one in my bag, a thin client in my pocket, and a bunch of upstream data centers that provide amazing services. Some people might hanker for a completely decentralized P2P model of the Internet, and BitTorrent shows this is still hugely relevant. But practical issues of bandwidth mean that there will always be a place for locality-exploiting concentrations of CPU and storage in data centres.
  - Uhhrrr 13y ago
    I meant the part about centralized power being highly suspect. We have certainly seen all too well recently that that part is true.
    - robotresearcher 13y ago
      True enough. I guess every generation needs their reminder. Still, the meta-point holds: centralized power lacks robustness (e.g. to corruption and/or the stupidity of a relative few), but has big advantages over widely distributed systems in terms of communication latency and bandwidth that enable efficiency. We're sloshing around dynamically trying combinations, but we should expect to always see some centralized (opportunities for efficiency) and some distributed (opportunities for robustness) stuff going on.
- epo 13y ago
  Not really, Facebook, Google, the cloud... All essentially mainframe-like services. Most people nowadays don't need their own computer they just need a simple display/interactive terminal, what did we use to call those? Oh yes, CRTs, iPad for you youngsters.
mhurron 13y ago
He didn't predict the cloud, he basically predicted that the way things were then (timeshared system with dumb terminals) was the way it was always going to be. So he wasn't predicting anything, it was already there. You might be able to say that he predicted it would grow to have terminals everywhere but that is more just looking at normal growth if you assumed the current way of doing things is the way it would always be done. We're not catching up, we're going back to it. Just this time we have dumb terminals just as powerful as the server that is doing things but relegated to doing nothing but displaying markup. It wouldn't surprise me if cost of the terminal compared to the cost of a central server at the time factored into his views. The man was amazing, it is not often that one man can make such a impact on the everyday lives of so many, but in this case he missed where computing was going. Oddly, his creation of the mouse made personal computers more accessible to everyone.

ThomPete 13y ago

Hmm so a kind of liberal vs. socialist philosophy of technology. You just gave me a new perspective on things. Thanks!

triplesec 13y ago
entirely not such a gross simplification
- ThomPete 13y ago
  hence the expression "kind of"
saraid216 13y ago
I'd suggest checking out Wikipedia, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and Encyclopedia Britannica on the term "communitarianism". It's far more relevant than applying the word "socialist" without meaning.
- ThomPete 13y ago
  That depends what you put in that word. To me socialism is not a bad thing.
  - saraid216 13y ago
    To me, socialism isn't meaningfully comparable to liberalism. It's apples and oranges.
    - ThomPete 13y ago
      Well then you need to change your perspective I guess. Of course it's comparable. They are both political systems.
      - saraid216 13y ago
        Socialism isn't a political system. Neither, come to that, is liberalism. Socialism is an economic system. Liberalism is a political philosophy. How about, instead of using labels like "liberal vs socialist" to express your point, you actually describe what you mean? Because you clearly haven't conveyed the contrast between Engelbart and the "younger programmers" that you wanted to.
        ThomPete 13y ago
        Socialism is as much a political philosophy and system as it is an economic system. You seem to like Wikipedia, so I suggest you go read up on it. And please read what was actually written. I was not expressing a point I was thanking someone for giving me a new perspective on things. Whether your understanding of the words socialism & liberalism allow you to understand that is really not of my concern.

Uhhrrr 13y ago

Heh - I think the younger programmers were right on that one.

robotresearcher 13y ago
They were both right. The web brought them together. We didn't have to choose after all. I have a fabulously powerful personal workstation on my desk, a slimmer, more modest one in my bag, a thin client in my pocket, and a bunch of upstream data centers that provide amazing services. Some people might hanker for a completely decentralized P2P model of the Internet, and BitTorrent shows this is still hugely relevant. But practical issues of bandwidth mean that there will always be a place for locality-exploiting concentrations of CPU and storage in data centres.
- Uhhrrr 13y ago
  I meant the part about centralized power being highly suspect. We have certainly seen all too well recently that that part is true.
  - robotresearcher 13y ago
    True enough. I guess every generation needs their reminder. Still, the meta-point holds: centralized power lacks robustness (e.g. to corruption and/or the stupidity of a relative few), but has big advantages over widely distributed systems in terms of communication latency and bandwidth that enable efficiency. We're sloshing around dynamically trying combinations, but we should expect to always see some centralized (opportunities for efficiency) and some distributed (opportunities for robustness) stuff going on.
epo 13y ago
Not really, Facebook, Google, the cloud... All essentially mainframe-like services. Most people nowadays don't need their own computer they just need a simple display/interactive terminal, what did we use to call those? Oh yes, CRTs, iPad for you youngsters.

mhurron 13y ago

He didn't predict the cloud, he basically predicted that the way things were then (timeshared system with dumb terminals) was the way it was always going to be. So he wasn't predicting anything, it was already there. You might be able to say that he predicted it would grow to have terminals everywhere but that is more just looking at normal growth if you assumed the current way of doing things is the way it would always be done. We're not catching up, we're going back to it. Just this time we have dumb terminals just as powerful as the server that is doing things but relegated to doing nothing but displaying markup. It wouldn't surprise me if cost of the terminal compared to the cost of a central server at the time factored into his views. The man was amazing, it is not often that one man can make such a impact on the everyday lives of so many, but in this case he missed where computing was going. Oddly, his creation of the mouse made personal computers more accessible to everyone.