[HN Gopher] Not as famous as they should be (2021)
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Not as famous as they should be (2021)
Author : arexxbifs
Score : 119 points
Date : 2022-09-27 11:34 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (datagubbe.se)
(TXT) w3m dump (datagubbe.se)
| loph wrote:
| This 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
| [deleted]
| sheikheddy wrote:
| Wrote a paper about him for a history class in college, nice to
| see it pop up on HN.
| amelius wrote:
| What would be the opposite? I.e., people more famous in computing
| than they should be.
| adwn wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| Why the last one?
| bitwize wrote:
| Alan 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 wrote:
| I agree that ESR and Martin are quite overrated, but why Kay?
| And why call out that you expect downvotes?
| adwn wrote:
| The "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 wrote:
| Tim 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
| 13of40 wrote:
| The browser was a bit of an obvious invention at the time. We
| were cramming more and more functionality into BBS software,
| and rendering it into a WYSIWYG+WIMP client was a natural
| next step. If I'd managed to get off the couch that week, I'd
| be the father of "the internet". (My one was a lot more like
| a pdf document, though.)
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Tim Berners Lee is widely accredited as the inventor of the
| internet
|
| Do you mean the web?
|
| The Internet was already a thing before either of these
| people came along and built something on top of it.
| tialaramex wrote:
| The things that stands out about Tim's toy hypertext system
| (the "World Wide Web") was that Tim was focused on the actual
| system, rather than on the academic experiment. There were
| researchers in that area but they felt it was important to
| figure out problems like link decay before you would try to
| deploy this at scale, Tim didn't care, it worked fine.
|
| What you've done is akin to if somebody argued that it's
| wrong to credit Bill Gates with inventing the computer when
| really that's what Steve Jobs did. It's not even the right
| generation. [ You can argue about whether what matters is the
| idea of the Analytical Engine, or one of the early
| realisations like the Z3, or Colossus or ENIAC or whatever.
| But those things were all built and (aside from the
| Analytical Engine) in use before Jobs or Gates were even born
| ]
| macintux wrote:
| I can't let that pass without the necessary pedantry: the
| Internet long predated either contribution.
| dachryn wrote:
| ah 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
| binarymax wrote:
| Indeed, 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
| fanf2 wrote:
| The photo in this tweet sums it up nicely
| https://twitter.com/nixcraft/status/1204166408730361856
| [deleted]
| Arkhaine_kupo wrote:
| I remember a doctor describing this effect in his field in
| the last century. He said many conditions, particularly
| mental health related where all written down by French and
| German doctors at the turn of the century, so this friend
| Doctor of mine learned the original names.
|
| But as American and British publishers started growing, they
| started doing a very sly thing which was, when an anglo
| researcher made a contribution to the understanding of that
| condition they would double barrel it at first. So it might
| have started as the Friedman psychosis, then it became the
| Friedman-Johns psychosis, and slowly the newer editions just
| had the Johns psychosis.
|
| I wonder if Caillau is but a newer victim of this seemingly
| very anglophilic tradition.
| h2odragon wrote:
| Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.
| bigyikes wrote:
| You think the founders of the most valuable computer
| companies in the world are too famous?
| h2odragon wrote:
| Compared to the people whose work they actually sold, yes.
| isolli wrote:
| I nominate Shiva Ayyadurai, self-proclaimed inventor of email:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva_Ayyadurai#%22EMAIL%22_in...
| h2odragon wrote:
| Vint 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
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| Is insentience a bit of parapraxis? I expect you meant to say
| at his insistence.
| samiam_iam wrote:
| IDK, insentience certainly works too, and maybe better. Plus
| I learned two new words today. All good. Carry on.
| h2odragon wrote:
| You are correct, that is an error. Serendipity perhaps :)
| LukeShu wrote:
| From 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 wrote:
| I'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
| the_lonely_road wrote:
| Weirdly 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.
| bitwize wrote:
| He was brought in as a publicity stunt. He did very little on
| the Amiga, and he didn't use it professionally in his work.
| aa-jv wrote:
| He 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 wrote:
| warhol was an accomplished and talented draftsman
| aa-jv wrote:
| He gained fame mostly for his ripoffs, regardless of his
| skills.
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| So did Led Zeppelin but nobody stood on stage for 4 hours
| every night like them.
|
| It's all about building up on other people's previous work.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Weird that what you call ripping off many call the most
| recognized pieces of modern art.
| aa-jv wrote:
| Critics, maybe. Judges, no:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/05/arts/design/warhol-
| copyri...
| ghaff wrote:
| I 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.
| simonswords82 wrote:
| Nice 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 wrote:
| I have the same suspicion as you. I just think it's unfortunate
| that people know mostly about the billionaires and their
| tweets.
| gnfargbl wrote:
| Someone 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 wrote:
| Agreed 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
| ry4nolson wrote:
| According 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 wrote:
| Maybe, 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 wrote:
| You'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..., which as I recall was a pretty decent
| introduction to how microprocessors work (of the RISC
| variety, anyway).
| throwarm wrote:
| inopinatus wrote:
| Incorrect. Names are a reference, not a value.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| I 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.
| saltcured wrote:
| I'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...?
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I go to a lot of effort to find others with the same ideas
| as me and I found that I am unusually unique. Having a
| unique idea makes me feel insane and my compulsion to test
| the idea comes from a need of validation. I would be much
| happier if someone else did it because there are more
| profitable things I could be working on. I don't think
| inventiveness is evenly distributed among the population. I
| think it can be both true that such talent is rare and that
| it needs the additionally rare appropriate time and place
| for it to flourish.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I 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.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Hal 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]
| swayvil wrote:
| Forget fame. Massive financial compensation is better.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| > Avril Harrison
|
| So now I can put a name to the person whose art constantly made
| me feel bad about my Deluxe Paint skills :)
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