From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-Id: <097ACA1E-2886-4986-9D65-7E1CEE524C3D@gmail.com> From: Patrick Kelly To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net> In-Reply-To: <095c2705f87146bf66758e638489c094@coraid.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed; delsp=yes Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mime-Version: 1.0 (iPod Mail 7D11) Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2010 12:02:56 -0500 References: <095c2705f87146bf66758e638489c094@coraid.com> Subject: Re: [9fans] parallels Topicbox-Message-UUID: baaa78c6-ead5-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 On Jan 8, 2010, at 2:46 PM, erik quanstrom wrote: >>> it's unfortunate that computer history isn't a bigger >>> component of a computer science degree. >> >> History and Philosophy of Science was slow in becoming a legitimate >> academic pursuit of great practical value. It will probably not be >> quite as long before the analogous subject will materialise for >> electronic computing. It is an answered question how much influence >> financial interests will have on it. > > the history and philosophy of $subject would be a broader, and > less applicable topic than what i'm getting at. in dict(1), /history/ > 1.1 or 2 is what i'm talking about. > > no (serious) physicist since newton or since maxwell has ignored their > work. no mathematician since newton or hilbert has ignored their > work. computer science seems exceptional to me in this regard; > we have learned many things that don't work, but seldom seem to > recall the lessons learned. History should be a part of everything. Alas this isn't the case. I tend to read up on everything, past and present, before starting a project, people think it's stupid. I'm more successful, but it's still stupid... > > - erik >