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

[Matthew Kirschenbaum]

This would be my main question as well: What, if anything, makes source
material for the history of computer science more difficult to grapple with
than that of any other era or topic?

In fact I suspect there *are* some pretty compelling ways to come at that
somewhat tendentious question, but that they have more to do (as I take it
Tom was suggesting back in his original CACM piece) with the
institutionalization and socialization of historiography itself in and
around CS, and not the mere "technical" pedigree of the material. I have in
mind here access to archives and primary sources, as well as differing
standards of documentation in different quadrants of CS. I've certainly run
up against this in my work on word processing, though I realize that's
still more history of software than CS proper. Best, Matt




On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 2:33 PM, Janet Abbate <abbate at vt.edu> wrote:

> Dave, that's a great idea for a SIGCIS panel. We could ask participants to
> compile and present either a historical overview of the main milestones in
> their computing speciality, or a list of its major concepts, tools or
> approaches (whatever the main "outputs" are in their specialty). The
> "computing speciality" could be as broad or narrow as they feel comfortable
> discussing.
>
> As Tom points out, the obstacle to historians is knowing *what* we need to
> learn about computer science. Actually learning the material is no harder
> than learning other esoteric material historians have to grapple with.
>
> Bonus: We could see some lively debate if the panelists come up with
> non-intersecting lists of the great achievements in their field. : )
>
> Janet
>
> On Jan 15, 2015, at 8:40 30AM, Dave Walden wrote:
>
> > There are lots of people who already know a lot of computer science who
> could be encouraged to help research or write more history, for example,
> > - I know an undergraduate history major who then got a PhD in computer
> science
> > - lots of us who studied and practice computer science for our career
> have retired and now have time to research and/or write computing history
> > How about a SIGCIS session at SHOT oriented to one-time practitioners
> and advertising for their participation on lists where they might see the
> session announcement, e.g., on the Internet History list.
> > Any of the above might also be willing to collaborate in a piece of
> history research.
> > I know lots of us who have spent lots of time helping popular authors of
> computing history understand the technology.  We could also help
> professionally trained historians if they asked us, either as named
> co-authors and full collaborators or simply helping with technology in the
> background with an acknowledgement at the end of the paper.  If we don't
> know the technology area ourselves, we probably know someone who knows who
> might be willing to help.
> > Of course, there is also quite a number of professionally trained
> historians who have undergraduate and perhaps graduate degrees in computer
> science.
> >
> >
> >
> > At 07:59 PM 1/14/2015, Nabeel Siddiqui wrote:
> >
> >> Dear all,
> >>
> >> Janet beat me to it, but I had a similar reaction upon reading the
> article.  I believe that two additional factors will lead to the technical
> history of computer science diminishing even further. Â
> >>
> >> First, it is nearly impossible for a graduate student to currently
> spend time gaining a technical understanding of computer science and still
> stay competitive for jobs in a humanities field.  As Tom noted, there are
> no jobs available for a student that wanted to do this kind of work. I
> would take the technical history of computer science to be, at best, suited
> for an intellectual history position.  Intellectual history itself has
> eschewed this type of approach and now heavily focuses on social history.
> There, even a student trained in intellectual history would have a hard
> time gaining a foothold in the academy.  A student would likely have to
> learn the technical literature on their own unless they were specifically
> admitted to a program to study the history of computers. In my own
> interdisciplinary program of American Studies, I have had the opportunity
> to take a great deal of independent studies, but I have still had a
> difficult time taking a course outside of humanities departments. Â
> >>
> >> Two, while this listserv is an exception, few historians of science are
> trained in computer science in any significant way.  The few that are
> usually have their undergraduate degrees in computer science rather than
> vice versa.  While some of these people have been able to dable in both
> history and computer science, I would say it is getting rarer with newer
> students.  In fact, I have found that many students of computer science
> now take more courses in "marketable" skills like programming and
> networking.  While these contain a technical component, I don't know how
> many in the future would have the training necessary to understand old
> technical documents that may contain approaches that are outdated or
> unnecessary for their own work. Â
> >>
> >> I would love to see some fellowships or opportunities for humanities
> graduate students to counter this.  In my own research on personal
> computers, I come through a great deal of articles dealing with technical
> topics in early hobbyist magazines.  Unfortunately, because these hobbyist
> magazines assume that their readers are other engineers, things like
> schematics, code, etc. is often lost on me.  I don't believe a historian
> necessarily needs to know this to gain the gist of the articles, but it
> would be helpful.  Business historians have been doing this for a while
> with workshops that teach economics and finance basics.  Digital
> humanities scholars have also been at the forefront of humanities oriented
> technical training with workshops on programming and statistics. Â
> >>
> >> Sincerely,
> >>
> >> Nabeel
> >>
> >
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-- 
Matthew Kirschenbaum
Associate Professor of English
Associate Director, Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities
(MITH)
University of Maryland
301-405-8505 or 301-314-7111 (fax)
http://mkirschenbaum.net and @mkirschenbaum on Twitter

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