* [TUHS] Managers/architects (was: AIX moved into maintainance mode)
@ 2023-01-19 17:50 Noel Chiappa
2023-01-19 18:00 ` [TUHS] " Marc Donner
2023-01-19 21:12 ` [TUHS] Re: Managers/architects (was: AIX moved into maintainance mode) Lawrence Stewart
0 siblings, 2 replies; 8+ messages in thread
From: Noel Chiappa @ 2023-01-19 17:50 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: tuhs; +Cc: jnc
> 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
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Managers/architects (was: AIX moved into maintainance mode)
2023-01-19 17:50 [TUHS] Managers/architects (was: AIX moved into maintainance mode) Noel Chiappa
@ 2023-01-19 18:00 ` Marc Donner
2023-01-19 18:09 ` Charles H Sauer (he/him)
2023-01-20 3:47 ` John Cowan
2023-01-19 21:12 ` [TUHS] Re: Managers/architects (was: AIX moved into maintainance mode) Lawrence Stewart
1 sibling, 2 replies; 8+ messages in thread
From: Marc Donner @ 2023-01-19 18:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Noel Chiappa; +Cc: tuhs
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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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^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Managers/architects (was: AIX moved into maintainance mode)
2023-01-19 18:00 ` [TUHS] " Marc Donner
@ 2023-01-19 18:09 ` Charles H Sauer (he/him)
2023-01-20 3:47 ` John Cowan
1 sibling, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread
From: Charles H Sauer (he/him) @ 2023-01-19 18:09 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: tuhs
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
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Managers/architects (was: AIX moved into maintainance mode)
2023-01-19 18:00 ` [TUHS] " Marc Donner
2023-01-19 18:09 ` Charles H Sauer (he/him)
@ 2023-01-20 3:47 ` John Cowan
2023-01-20 16:54 ` [TUHS] FYI: Apple Lisa [source Pascal code] goes “open source” Rich Morin
1 sibling, 1 reply; 8+ messages in thread
From: John Cowan @ 2023-01-20 3:47 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Marc Donner; +Cc: Noel Chiappa, tuhs
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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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^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Managers/architects (was: AIX moved into maintainance mode)
2023-01-19 17:50 [TUHS] Managers/architects (was: AIX moved into maintainance mode) Noel Chiappa
2023-01-19 18:00 ` [TUHS] " Marc Donner
@ 2023-01-19 21:12 ` Lawrence Stewart
1 sibling, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread
From: Lawrence Stewart @ 2023-01-19 21:12 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Noel Chiappa; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society
>
> 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
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Managers/architects (was: AIX moved into maintainance mode)
@ 2023-01-19 21:30 Douglas McIlroy
0 siblings, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread
From: Douglas McIlroy @ 2023-01-19 21:30 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: TUHS main list
> 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.
I don't know whether Sutherland invented the linked list, but if he
did, it had to be before he worked on sketchpad. I attended a lecture
about Lisp in 1959 in which McCarthy credited list-processing to
IPL-V, whose roots Newell places in 1954. Sketchpad ran on TX 0, which
became operational in 1956.
My nomination for a triple-threat computer guy is Vic Vyssotsky. A
great programmer, he invented the first stream-processing language
(BLODI) and bitwise-parallel dataflow analysis. As an architect, he
invented the single underlying address space for multics. As a
manager, he oversaw the building of and later ran the lab that became
AT&T Research. Finally he founded the DEC Cambridge Lab. He was a
subtle diplomat, too, who more than once engineered reversals of
policy without ruffling feathers.
Relative to linked lists, I remember Vic perceptively touting the then
startling usage J=NEXT(J).in Fortran.
Doug
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
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2023-01-19 17:50 [TUHS] Managers/architects (was: AIX moved into maintainance mode) Noel Chiappa
2023-01-19 18:00 ` [TUHS] " Marc Donner
2023-01-19 18:09 ` Charles H Sauer (he/him)
2023-01-20 3:47 ` John Cowan
2023-01-20 16:54 ` [TUHS] FYI: Apple Lisa [source Pascal code] goes “open source” Rich Morin
2023-01-20 17:07 ` [TUHS] " Ron Natalie
2023-01-19 21:12 ` [TUHS] Re: Managers/architects (was: AIX moved into maintainance mode) Lawrence Stewart
2023-01-19 21:30 Douglas McIlroy
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