[SIGCIS-Members] interviewing in North America

[Edgar Daylight]

Dear All,

As a researcher in the history of programming languages, living with a wife and daughter in Belgium, I am looking for funding so that I can travel to North America multiple times in 2013 in order to extensively interview some high-profile & retired computer scientists. I have already met some of these potential interviewees at Turing events in England and have had lengthy email conversations with others (--- as a reaction to my previous writings).  So most of them already know me.

Can anyone help me get funding? Unfortunately, moving to the USA for a year is not an option for me due to family obligations. Each interview would require 8 weeks of preparation. If possible, I would like to interview at least 4 people (and wouldn't mind having dinner conversations with several more).  Being able to meet some interviewees more than once would be nice. I can be more specific in private correspondence and am of course willing to write a research proposal. 


All interviews will cover the 1950s -- 1970s and will share the same themes:

+ the transition from special-purpose machines to general-purpose computers (e.g. IBM Stretch, IBM OS/360) (cf. Amdahl, Blaauw, Brooks)
+ the emerging dichotomy between software engineering and computer science
+ the influence, if any, of Turing and logic in the aforementioned transition and dichotomy
+ different notions of structured programming (e.g. Mills at IBM, Parnas, Dijkstra)
+ different notions of "general purpose", "general", "elegant" in programming


Any feedback is very welcome!

Many thanks in advance.
Edgar Daylight.
My short CV is available on my website: www.dijkstrascry.com
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