[TUHS] Managers/architects (was: AIX moved into maintainance mode)

[TUHS] Managers/architects (was: AIX moved into maintainance mode)

[Noel Chiappa]

    > From: Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com>

    > At least 30 years ago I said "He's good programmer, a good architect,
    > and a good manager. I've never seen that in one person before".

Corby? Although he was just down the hall from me, I never saw him operating
in any of those roles; maybe some of the old-time Unix people have some
insight. Saltzer is about off-scale in #2; probably good as a manager
(although I had a monumental blow-up with him in the hallway on the 5th
floor, but I was pretty close to unmanageable when I was young ;-); he took
over Athena when it was stumbling, and got it going. Dave Clark is high on
all three - he could manage me! :-)

Bob Taylor? PARC did some _incredibly_ important stuff in his time. Yes, I
know a lot of the credit goes to those under him (Butler Lampson, Alan Kay -
not sure if he was in Taylor's group, Boggs, Metcalfe, etc) but he had to
manage them all. Not sure what his technical role was, though.

Vint Cerf? Again, A1*** as a manager, but had some failings as a architect. I
think the biggest share of the blame for the decision to remove the variable
size addresses from TCP/IP3, and replace them with 32-bit addresses in
TCP/IPv4, goes to him. (Alas, I was down the hall, not in the room, that day;
I wasn't allowed in until the _next_ meeting. I like to think that if I'd been
there, I could/would have pointed out the 'obvious' superior alternative -
'only length 4 must be supported at this time'.)

	Noel

PS: ISTR that about a month ago someone was asking for management papers
from that era (but I was too busy to reply); two good ones are:

  - F. J.  Corbat??, C. T. Clingen, "A Managerial View of the Multics System Development"
	https://multicians.org/managerial.html
  - F. J. Corbat??, C. T. Clingen, and J. H. Saltzer, "Multics -- the first seven years" 
	https://multicians.org/f7y.html

[TUHS] Re: Managers/architects (was: AIX moved into maintainance mode)

[Marc Donner]

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I'd certainly list Bob Sproull for all three, from personal observation.

My guess is that Ivan Sutherland probably qualified back when he still
programmed ... I mean, after all, he invented the linked list in order to
implement his thesis program (Sketchpad) in about 1960.
=====
nygeek.net
mindthegapdialogs.com/home <https://www.mindthegapdialogs.com/home>


On Thu, Jan 19, 2023 at 12:50 PM Noel Chiappa <jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
wrote:

>     > From: Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com>
>
>     > At least 30 years ago I said "He's good programmer, a good architect,
>     > and a good manager. I've never seen that in one person before".
>
> Corby? Although he was just down the hall from me, I never saw him
> operating
> in any of those roles; maybe some of the old-time Unix people have some
> insight. Saltzer is about off-scale in #2; probably good as a manager
> (although I had a monumental blow-up with him in the hallway on the 5th
> floor, but I was pretty close to unmanageable when I was young ;-); he took
> over Athena when it was stumbling, and got it going. Dave Clark is high on
> all three - he could manage me! :-)
>
> Bob Taylor? PARC did some _incredibly_ important stuff in his time. Yes, I
> know a lot of the credit goes to those under him (Butler Lampson, Alan Kay
> -
> not sure if he was in Taylor's group, Boggs, Metcalfe, etc) but he had to
> manage them all. Not sure what his technical role was, though.
>
> Vint Cerf? Again, A1*** as a manager, but had some failings as a
> architect. I
> think the biggest share of the blame for the decision to remove the
> variable
> size addresses from TCP/IP3, and replace them with 32-bit addresses in
> TCP/IPv4, goes to him. (Alas, I was down the hall, not in the room, that
> day;
> I wasn't allowed in until the _next_ meeting. I like to think that if I'd
> been
> there, I could/would have pointed out the 'obvious' superior alternative -
> 'only length 4 must be supported at this time'.)
>
>         Noel
>
> PS: ISTR that about a month ago someone was asking for management papers
> from that era (but I was too busy to reply); two good ones are:
>
>   - F. J.  Corbat??, C. T. Clingen, "A Managerial View of the Multics
> System Development"
>         https://multicians.org/managerial.html
>   - F. J. Corbat??, C. T. Clingen, and J. H. Saltzer, "Multics -- the
> first seven years"
>         https://multicians.org/f7y.html
>

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[TUHS] Re: Managers/architects (was: AIX moved into maintainance mode)

[Charles H Sauer (he/him)]

Not trying to keep AIX in the discussion, but the 3 in 1 list should 
include Glenn Henry. Glenn was primarily a manager when I worked for 
him, but was an architect before then and is still a programmer -- see 
the summary at 
http://web.archive.org/web/20200105071617/http://www.ece.utexas.edu/events/centaur-technologys-deep-learning-coprocessor-technology 
and/or https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102738382

Charlie

On 1/19/2023 12:00 PM, Marc Donner wrote:
> I'd certainly list Bob Sproull for all three, from personal observation.
> 
> My guess is that Ivan Sutherland probably qualified back when he still 
> programmed ... I mean, after all, he invented the linked list in order 
> to implement his thesis program (Sketchpad) in about 1960.
> =====
> nygeek.net <http://nygeek.net>
> mindthegapdialogs.com/home <https://www.mindthegapdialogs.com/home>
> 
> 
> On Thu, Jan 19, 2023 at 12:50 PM Noel Chiappa <jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu 
> <mailto:jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>> wrote:
> 
>          > From: Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com <mailto:lm@mcvoy.com>>
> 
>          > At least 30 years ago I said "He's good programmer, a good
>     architect,
>          > and a good manager. I've never seen that in one person before".
> 
>     Corby? Although he was just down the hall from me, I never saw him
>     operating
>     in any of those roles; maybe some of the old-time Unix people have some
>     insight. Saltzer is about off-scale in #2; probably good as a manager
>     (although I had a monumental blow-up with him in the hallway on the 5th
>     floor, but I was pretty close to unmanageable when I was young ;-);
>     he took
>     over Athena when it was stumbling, and got it going. Dave Clark is
>     high on
>     all three - he could manage me! :-)
> 
>     Bob Taylor? PARC did some _incredibly_ important stuff in his time.
>     Yes, I
>     know a lot of the credit goes to those under him (Butler Lampson,
>     Alan Kay -
>     not sure if he was in Taylor's group, Boggs, Metcalfe, etc) but he
>     had to
>     manage them all. Not sure what his technical role was, though.
> 
>     Vint Cerf? Again, A1*** as a manager, but had some failings as a
>     architect. I
>     think the biggest share of the blame for the decision to remove the
>     variable
>     size addresses from TCP/IP3, and replace them with 32-bit addresses in
>     TCP/IPv4, goes to him. (Alas, I was down the hall, not in the room,
>     that day;
>     I wasn't allowed in until the _next_ meeting. I like to think that
>     if I'd been
>     there, I could/would have pointed out the 'obvious' superior
>     alternative -
>     'only length 4 must be supported at this time'.)
> 
>              Noel
> 
>     PS: ISTR that about a month ago someone was asking for management papers
>     from that era (but I was too busy to reply); two good ones are:
> 
>        - F. J.  Corbat??, C. T. Clingen, "A Managerial View of the
>     Multics System Development"
>     https://multicians.org/managerial.html
>     <https://multicians.org/managerial.html>
>        - F. J. Corbat??, C. T. Clingen, and J. H. Saltzer, "Multics --
>     the first seven years"
>     https://multicians.org/f7y.html <https://multicians.org/f7y.html>
> 

-- 
voice: +1.512.784.7526       e-mail: sauer@technologists.com
fax: +1.512.346.5240         Web: https://technologists.com/sauer/
Facebook/Google/Twitter: CharlesHSauer

[TUHS] Re: Managers/architects (was: AIX moved into maintainance mode)

[Lawrence Stewart]

> 
> Bob Taylor? PARC did some _incredibly_ important stuff in his time. Yes, I
> know a lot of the credit goes to those under him (Butler Lampson, Alan Kay -
> not sure if he was in Taylor's group, Boggs, Metcalfe, etc) but he had to
> manage them all. Not sure what his technical role was, though.
> 

Taylor was an extraordinary manager, but neither a programmer nor architect.
I’d certainly add Vic Vyssotsky as manager and technologist from my own experience 
and labs folklore, but I don’t know about programming or architecture.

-Larry

[TUHS] Re: Managers/architects (was: AIX moved into maintainance mode)

[John Cowan]

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On Thu, Jan 19, 2023 at 1:01 PM Marc Donner <marc.donner@gmail.com> wrote:


> My guess is that Ivan Sutherland probably qualified back when he still
> programmed ... I mean, after all, he invented the linked list in order to
> implement his thesis program (Sketchpad) in about 1960.
>

1963, which makes it younger than Lisp (McCarthy 1960) and IPL (Newell,
Shaw, Simon 1957), the original list-processing languages.

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[TUHS] FYI: Apple Lisa [source Pascal code] goes “open source”

[Rich Morin]

Pioneering Apple Lisa goes “open source” thanks to Computer History Museum
Lisa OS 3.1's 1984 source Pascal code now available under a non-commercial license.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/01/pioneering-apple-lisa-goes-open-source-thanks-to-computer-history-museum/

CHM MAKES APPLE LISA SOURCE CODE AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC AS A PART OF ITS ART OF CODE SERIES
https://computerhistory.org/press-releases/chm-makes-apple-lisa-source-code-available-to-the-public-as-a-part-of-its-art-of-code-series/

-r

[TUHS] Re: FYI: Apple Lisa [source Pascal code] goes “open source”

[Ron Natalie]

Nothing about the LISA OS or the subsequent MAC XL (extra large?  extra 
Lisas in inventory?) is remotely UNIXy.



------ Original Message ------
From "Rich Morin" <rdm@cfcl.com>
To "Tautological Eunuch Horticultural Scythians" <tuhs@tuhs.org>
Date 1/20/2023 11:54:07 AM
Subject [TUHS] FYI: Apple Lisa [source Pascal code] goes “open source”

>Pioneering Apple Lisa goes “open source” thanks to Computer History Museum
>Lisa OS 3.1's 1984 source Pascal code now available under a non-commercial license.
>https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/01/pioneering-apple-lisa-goes-open-source-thanks-to-computer-history-museum/
>
>CHM MAKES APPLE LISA SOURCE CODE AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC AS A PART OF ITS ART OF CODE SERIES
>https://computerhistory.org/press-releases/chm-makes-apple-lisa-source-code-available-to-the-public-as-a-part-of-its-art-of-code-series/
>
>-r
>