[SIGCIS-Members] My CACM column on "The Tears of Donald Knuth"

Fri Jan 16 13:38:58 PST 2015

Hi Janet:

Thanks - it’s always difficult to assess how accessible one’s writings are to people from other research communities.

Cheers

Brian

On 16 Jan 2015, at 18:47, Janet Abbate <abbate at VT.EDU> wrote:

> Brian,
> 
> This looks very useful for someone interested in your speciality, and it's quite intelligible to the non-specialist.  
> 
> IEEE has published a number of glossaries in its standards series, but these run to hundreds pages, and just having a bunch of definitions is not very helpful. 
> 
> Janet
> 
> 
> On Jan 14, 2015, at 6:14 39PM, Brian Randell wrote:
> 
>> Hi Janet:
>> 
>> Well said!
>> 
>> However, as a "computer scientist not trained in history”, let me claim that at least for my main area of CS research, namely "system dependability”, a number of us put a lot of effort over a number of years into identifying and explaining the concepts involved - see
>> 
>> Avizienis A, Laprie J-C, Randell B, Landwehr C. Basic concepts and taxonomy of dependable and secure computing. IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing 2004, 1(1), 11-33.
>> 
>> But I must admit that computer scientists were our intended audience, not historians :-)
>> 
>> And though we got a lot of agreement in our immediate community, I cannot claim that we persuaded everybody to use our recommended set of concept definitions!
>> 
>> Cheers
>> 
>> Brian
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 14 Jan 2015, at 17:54, Janet Abbate <abbate at vt.edu> wrote:
>> 
>>> Tom does a good job of spelling out the problem of audience (or market, in institutional terms) for particular kinds of history. It's extremely encouraging that the column has received so much attention; perhaps it will even inspire some historical work by computer scientists. 
>>> 
>>> One important issue that Tom did not address is the difficulty for a historian not trained in CS to achieve a sold technical understanding of computer science concepts. Part of the problem is that in many subfields, computer scientists themselves have not made public an agreed-on set of major concepts that the historian could then set about trying to learn. This information is buried in the technical literature, and it's difficult for a non-specialist to tease out. We need better roadmaps of the field if we want better technical history. 
>>> 
>>> This makes me think that collaboration between historians and computer scientists will be necessary in order to move the history of computer science (rather than technology) forward. I hope to make some moves in that direction myself. 
>>> 
>>> best,
>>> Janet
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Jan 12, 2015, at 2:57 47PM, Thomas Haigh wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Hello Everyone,
>>>> 
>>>> Thought you might be interested in my latest "Historical Reflections" column
>>>> in Communications of the ACM, titled "The Tears of Donald Knuth: Has the
>>>> History of Computing Taken a Tragic Turn?" (I thought about calling it "Flow
>>>> My Tears, The Computer Scientist Said," in honor of a 1970s Philip K. Dick
>>>> novel).
>>>> http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2015/1/181633-the-tears-of-donald-knuth/fullte
>>>> xt 
>>>> 
>>>> The piece builds on SIGCIS list discussion from last summer, when the video
>>>> of Knuth's talk, "Let's Not Dumb Down the History of Computer Science" was
>>>> posted online (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAXdDEQveKw). Knuth's talk
>>>> was, in turn, centered on his distress at reading Martin Campbell-Kelly's
>>>> paper "The History of the History of Software," which he saw as celebrating
>>>> a regrettable shift away from technical history of computing. Campbell-Kelly
>>>> recently published his own response to Knuth in IEEE Annals:
>>>> http://www.computer.org/csdl/mags/an/2014/03/man2014030096.pdf.
>>>> 
>>>> As a Ph.D. historian my natural sympathies are with the turn towards broader
>>>> historical approaches praised by Campbell-Kelly, but I have also come to
>>>> appreciate the value and rigor of more technical kinds of history (including
>>>> early programming tools and techniques by both Knuth and Campbell-Kelly). So
>>>> I attempted to be fair to both perspectives, while stressing that the
>>>> history of computer science accounts for a quite small proportion of the
>>>> work now being done on the history of computing. I also argue the realities
>>>> of academic society mean that the kinds of history favored by Knuth will
>>>> only flourish if computer scientists themselves make a significant
>>>> investment in historical work. Finally I took the opportunity to cite some
>>>> outstanding work on the history of computer science and to publicize some
>>>> new initiatives and scholars in the area. 
>>>> 
>>>> Such is the allure of Knuth's name that the column was seized on by tech
>>>> aggregation sites such as Slashdot, Hacker News, and Reddit when it first
>>>> appeared online over the Christmas break. It's also been tweeted and
>>>> blogged, and currently has about 75,000 downloads - more than the all the
>>>> other articles in the January CACM combined. I can't say that the online
>>>> discussions were particularly well informed, although they do include some
>>>> thoughtful comments along with sentiments such as "Gawd academia disgusts
>>>> me. These "historians" would be more useful to society if they dug cans and
>>>> bottles out of the trash." Anything that makes more people think about the
>>>> history of computing and its purpose is a good thing for the field. 
>>>> 
>>>> I'd like to thank those who commented on drafts of the column, including Len
>>>> Shustek, Dave Walden, David Hemmendinger, Bill Aspray, Chuck House, and Paul
>>>> Fishwick. Not all of them agreed with all of my points, but I did find their
>>>> input very useful in sharpening the argument and presenting my thoughts in a
>>>> way less likely to unnecessarily offend computer scientists.
>>>> 
>>>> Best wishes for the New Year,
>>>> 
>>>> Tom
>>>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> 
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>> 
>> 
>> --
>> School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne,
>> NE1 7RU, UK
>> EMAIL = Brian.Randell at ncl.ac.uk   PHONE = +44 191 208 7923
>> FAX = +44 191 208 8232  URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/people/brian.randell
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members

--
School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne,
NE1 7RU, UK
EMAIL = Brian.Randell at ncl.ac.uk   PHONE = +44 191 208 7923
FAX = +44 191 208 8232  URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/people/brian.randell