"Tech Heroes" From Ada Lovelace to Jamie Z

An anonymous reader writes "The Web 2.0 Journal has launched a search for what it calls "the all-time heroes of i-Technology" (its own shorthand for 'Internet technologies'), reaching as far back as to The Countess of Lovelace, though whether or not Ada Lovelace is truly the first programmer is not discussed. As an exercise in reminding ourselves whose shoulders we are standing on when hurtlng towards the 21st-century, richer Web it's not a bad start. Naturally there are sins of omission..."

well

[macadamia_harold (947445)]

The Web 2.0 Journal has launched a search for what it calls "the all-time heroes of i-Technology"

In the search for heroes, they should talk to a Mr. Mohinder Suresh. I hear he has a list.

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[amrust (686727)]

Are YOU on the list?

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[WilliamSChips (793741)]

Well actually I think Micah's the only one whose power involves technology.

irony of the sites name

[by Anonymous Coward]

a Web 2 "journal" that doesn't even validate and uses tables for presentation (not to mention 20+adverts per page) spread over 18 pages

if that's what web 2 is all about i'm dreading Web 3

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[rucs_hack (784150)]

Jesus, that site is horrifically designed. The first thing I got was an auto playing video, then a floating advert that followed me down the screen.

I may be wrong, but this strikes me as 'hey, lets make something slashdot might put up and fill it with adverts'. What a heap.

Oh, and web 2.0 is, so far as I've been able to tell, all about making money, and that means advertising, so yes, expect worse to come.

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[QRDeNameland (873957)]

Even worse, that crap pops up even if you have Adblock on.

Despite that, I hope whoever invented Adblock is on the list. My vote for best technology of the "Web 2.0" era, by far.

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[rucs_hack (784150)]

I do jhave addblock, which was why it was so shocking, normally I don't see the cruft of the interwebs

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[jpardey (569633)]

Me too. I decided to see if it was doing anything or not, so I pop open the sidebar and see it had already blocked about 20 items! I added an exception for the video ads, but I hope I never go to that site again.

Please check sites before linking them

[Mateo_LeFou (859634)]

This is by far the worst one.

Naturally there are sins of omission...

[antifoidulus (807088)]

Yeah, like no CowboyNeal option!

Re:Naturally there are sins of omission...

[Pictish Prince (988570)]

More to the point, how could they forget John von Neumann [wikipedia.org], Marvin Minsky [wikipedia.org] and others?

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[that this is not und (1026860)]

Be careful. I've had angry responses in the past when bringing up Marvin Minsky on slashdot.

The 'Artificial Intelligence' people are touchy these days.

Web 2.0 Journal?

[matt me (850665)]

A journal with that name just has to be a joke. Yes I did try to read the fucking article, but it was obscured by a large photograph of a bridge. I guess this was an advert.

Well I'm glad to see this web 2.0 is so user friendly.

Relax...

[mangu (126918)]

I did try to read the fucking article, but it was obscured by a large photograph

Think of it this way: you were looking at page 1. Of 22. Now, do you feel better? If you *had* read the fucking article, you would have had to click 22 times on that "close this window" button. That's what you get when you try to read an article about the inventor of Ada, the most overhyped language until Ruby.

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[prandal (87280)]

Except that "close that window button" is not accessible if you're on an 800x600 display. And when you try to scroll the page that flipping ad moves with you.

Consigning "Web 2.0 Journal" to the trashcan where it so obviously belongs.

Ada and Ruby

[krischik (781389)]

Ada, the most overhyped language until Ruby.

Ada was not overhyped - Ada delivered everything it promised. Ada was rather underestimaded by those who never learned Ada.

Of course that was the problem: When Ada came out only very powerfull system where able to run an Ada compiler so not many programmers could actualy try the language.

But that's not a problem any more, grap yourself an open source Ada compiler [1] and see for yourself.

As for Ruby: That seems a nice enough language as well. Never given me any problems. So where actually is your problem?

Martin

[1] http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ada_Programming/Insta lling [wikibooks.org]

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[mysticgoat (582871)]

I do so like the Firefox Nuke Anything Enhanced [mozilla.org] extension. I don't use it often, but for web sites like TFA it is nice to have its "remove this object" choice on the right click menu.

That said, you didn't miss much by not RTFA. I waded through the first few paragraphs, but stopped when I realized that author was in love with the english language but not in a healthy way...

Fire of My Loins!

[Mateo_LeFou (859634)]

Nabokov called _Lolita_ the story of his love affair with the English language.

(I vote we talk about anything and everything *except TFA.)

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[PCM2 (4486)]

A journal with that name just has to be a joke.

Sys-Con Media is known for this sort of thing. They whip up publications devoted to the latest trends, then scrap them when the ad dollars dry up.

They forgot one

[TodMinuit (1026042)]

Douglas Engelbart [wikipedia.org], the true father of desktop computing. At a time when computers were used merely for data processes, he envisioned they could be used in the everyday life.

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[by Anonymous Coward]

So he was the first person to put pr0n on a computer?

Woaaah

[by Anonymous Coward]

Ad gangbang!!!!!

I can't believe it, gazillion ads on one page (they topped tom's hardware)

Ouch!

[JamesTRexx (675890)]

when hurtlng towards the 21st-century, richer Web

I think I'll stick to plain HTML 4.0.1 if web 2.0 is going to hurt that much.

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[CerebusUS (21051)]

Also, aren't we already in the 21st century? shouldn't it be "through" instead of "towards?"

Claude E. Shannon

[z-man (103297)]

How is it possible to create a list of the most important people in technology throughout history and _not_ include Shannon. Jeez, the guy is the father of information theory and digital circuit design!

Dubious paternity

[by Anonymous Coward]

"In 1924 and 28, Nyquist and Hartley published the limits to communication over a noisy channel. In 1949, Shannon and Weaver published a book on the same subject. Shannon got the credit for Nyquists' and Hartley's work. He also claimed the 34 year old sampling theorem as his own work.
H. Nyquist, "Certain Factors Affecting Telegraph Speed," Bell Systems Tech. Jour., vol. 3, April 1924, p. 324
H. Nyquist, "Certain Topics in Telegraph Transmission Theory," A.I.E.E. Trans., vol. 47, April 1828, p. 617
R. V. L. Ha

The mind bibbles, boggles and so on

[allikat_uk (1058258)]

How could they forget Alan Turing? [wikipedia.org] The inventor of the Turing test for AI, and father of the modern computer?

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[rucs_hack (784150)]

He was not the father of the modern computer at all. Dr Tommy Flowers was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Flowers [wikipedia.org] . He created Collosus, so in every sense *he* was one of the fathers of modern computing. However he was constrained by the official secrets act to never discuss his creation, so his contribution was forgotten.
Turing knew how to use Colossus, and did some very impressive things. Certainly he could be assigned the title father of AI, but not of modern computing by a long shot. There are people

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[Tablizer (95088)]

He was not the father of the modern computer at all. Dr Tommy Flowers was

It appears they worked together, so it is hard to say. Turing used electro-mechanical relays, and Flowers replaced the designs with vacuum tubes because of his experience in phone systems. Thus, he may have simply "upgraded" the switches to faster technology rather than reinvent the entire computer design itself.
                 

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[rucs_hack (784150)]

Dr flowers actually built collossus away from bletchley park, and away from Turing. Not that I disagree that Turing may have dabbled, but he was not there when colossus was constructed

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[morgan_greywolf (835522)]

Turing on the list [web2journal.com]. Guess you must've missed that one...

Missing pair

[Raul654 (453029)]

At the risk of stating the obvious, the list is missing John Bardeen [wikipedia.org] and Walter Brattain [wikipedia.org], the guys who invented the transistor (With their manager, William Shockley, they won the Nobel prize in physics for it).

from their list

[nomadic (141991)]

Andy Hertzfield: Eazel developer and Macintosh forefather

Jean Ichbiah: Creator of Ada

Grace Murray Hopper: Developer of the first compiled high level programming language, COBOL

Jordan Hubbard: One of the creators of FreeBSD; currently a manager of Apple's Darwin project

Jean D Ichbiah: Principal designer, Ada language (1977)

Ken Iverson: Inventor of APL, later J

I've never used ADA, is it really so good that its inventor had to be listed twice in the same list?

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[NoNeeeed (157503)]

It's apt... The first mention was the specification, the second was the implementation body. Welcome to the world of Ada :) Paul (Ex Ada coder)

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[TheRaven64 (641858)]

The first mention was the specification, the second was the implementation body

In the list posted (I, obviously, didn't RTFA), the first listing was as 'creator' and the second as 'designer' of ADA. This sounds more like the first listing is for implementation while the second is for design.

This sounds like it would be a little bit more appropriate for Java or C# than ADA...

Article text

[by Anonymous Coward]

Who Are The All-Time Heroes of i-Technology?

I wonder how many people, as I did, found themselves thrown into confusion by the death last week of Jean Ichbiah (pictured below), inventor of Ada.

Learning that the inventor of a computer programming language is already old enough to have lived 66 years (Ichbiah was 66 when he succumbed to brain cancer) is a little like learning that your 11-year-old daughter has grown up and left home or that the first car you ever bought no longer is legal because it runs on ga

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[mad.frog (525085)]

today Gay still guides Adobe's Flash's development

No he doesn't. He hasn't been at Adobe for a long while now, and in fact, he and Robert Tatsumi have formed a new startup with other notable ex-Flash engineers.

Heroes

[alexj33 (968322)]

With the patenting of other people's ideas, Microsoft could be the "Sylar" of Tech Heroes.

Please tell me that was not an ordered list

[DarkOx (621550)]

For crying out loud I hope that list was not supposed to be in order of importance.

Vannevar Bush

[Aphrika (756248)]

He's [wikipedia.org] an absolutely huge omission from the list.

If you're unaware, he wrote a memo in 1945 titled 'As we may think' [theatlantic.com] which laid down a lot of seminal ideas about information, computing devices (the Memex [wikipedia.org]) and the way in which we interact with it - specifically the concept of hypertext.

If you haven't already read his memo, give it a shot. Along with Alvin Toffler's book 'Future Shock', this changed the way I view technology for ever... oh, stick Alvin Toffler on the list too, Bill Gates for 'commoditising' the PC, Gordon Moore, pretty much anyone who ever worked at Xerox PARC and the guy who invented the MP3 codec. They're all important to why we're sat here today.

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[pjones (10800)]

Bush's memo/article (published originally in The Atlantic Monthy) did have an effect in America. But the ideas in it as regards hypertext are far from original.

From 1937, HG Wells' essay/lecture "The World Brain: The Idea of a Permanent World Encyclopedia" reflects a more accurate version of what we now call the World Wide Web. Bush's hypertext was mostly personal and barely social. http://sherlock.berkeley.edu/wells/world_brain.htm l [berkeley.edu]

And even more important was Emanuel Goldberg, who actually had the machine

Proof that global warming is getting serious

[by Anonymous Coward]

By the time I logged in to read a Slashdot article about the creators of the Internet, not a single Al Gore joke had been posted.

Clean link

[Sax Maniac (88550)]

YARGH! Mine eyes and ears are bleeding! This one even stumped adblock with filterset G. Here's the print version: http://web2journal.com/read/331813_p.htm [web2journal.com]

We need a tag for "loaded up with ads to the point where you can't even RTFA if you wanted to", but I can't think of anything pithy. "adsoup"?

Some don't make sense

[MECC (8478)]

Some people are on his list just because they hold ranking positions on big companies, not for what they did.

How the hell did Bill Gate get on a list with Vince Cerf, John Postel, Robert Metcalfe, and Nicklaus Wirth? All he did was singlehandly pollute the Internet with spam, and lower IT standards to the point of making IT the laughing stock of the technology sector. Truly an intellectual midget among giants.

I'd add Woz and Rotenberg

[www.sorehands.com (142825)]

I'd include Steve Wozniak. He was the one who designed the Apple. The Apple II and The Trash-80 were the real home computers available for the masses. The earlier computers where you had to get them from Heathkit or toggle in your boot loader, didn't quite make it in the home and the business.

Also I would add Jonathan Rotenberg. He founded the Boston computer Society [wikipedia.org] in 1977. The BCS served as a incubator for new products and companies. Many of the large computer companies made presentations and announcements to the BCS. Several companies used groups of people at the BCS as source for focus groups and and source for beta groups (back in the days where they didn't consider customers their alpha testers).

Americans with Disabilities Act...

[krischik (781389)]

American Dental Association...
Americans for Democratic Action...
Assistant District Attorney...
American Diabetes Association...

which of them [1] are you sick off?

I personaly am sick of people who don't know that a "A female given name."[2] is not spelled all upper case.

Martin

[1] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ADA [wiktionary.org]
[2] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Ada [wiktionary.org]

Re:

[asifyoucare (302582)]

Well, I tried googling for Ms Lovelace and, believe you me, she had some interesting pictures.

The Lamarr Patent

[westlake (615356)]

When the group got back to the US, they applied for a patent and possibly as a joke put only Hedy's name on it.

Lamarr was in Hollywood in 1937.

U.S. Patent Number 2,292,387, August 11th, 1942, [was awarded to Hedy Lamarr] under the name 'Hedy Keisler Markey' (her married name) and George Antheil, for a 'Secret Communications System.' Nomination for the EFF Pioneer award [ncafe.com]

Lamarr's first husband was an independent munitions maker interested in control systems whose European properties were confiscated by the Reich in 1938. George Antheil, an avant-garde composer interested in the related problem of synchronizing non-traditional "instruments" in concert performance. Advanced Weaponry of the Stars [americanheritage.com]

Hitler wanted to win by bluff and before the war started, invited public figures from England and the US to see how invincible his military was.

Hitler was always alert to the propaganda value of massive displays of troops and guns and planes.

But he was not such a fool as to prematurely expose the secret technologies of jet propulsion, radar, guided missiles, the Enigma, etc., that, in the end, might prove decisive.

You are easily swayed.

[Picass0 (147474)]

I don't know James Long, Ph.D, but he seems to have an ax to grind. Most people who met Hedy Lamarr would verify she was extremely intelligent. Her husband in the early 30's, Fritz Mandal, was an engineer and producer of aircraft, artilery, and early weapons guidance. It would appear Hedy learned a thing or two during their time together.

There are many accounts of Lamarr explaining the process by which she and George Antheil invented the concept of frequency hopping. At the outbreak of WWII Hedy had in idea for a torpedo guidance system. Antheil suggested a way to sync the necessary systems together using a roll of punched paper (as in a player piano)

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[freeze128 (544774)]

Well, what if you were an optometrist?