The Future of Programming (2013)
9 months ago
- #Programming History
- #Innovation
- #Research Funding
- The talk 'The Future of Programming' was inspired by Alan Kay and discusses historical resistance to programming innovations like assemblers and FORTRAN.
- Key figures like John von Neumann and Richard Hamming initially dismissed higher-level programming tools, favoring manual, low-level coding.
- Early computing pioneers often didn't know what they were doing, leading to experimentation and breakthroughs in fields like parallel computing and AI.
- Funding models, particularly ARPA's no-strings-attached approach, enabled groundbreaking research, but the Mansfield Amendment shifted focus to military applications, stifling basic science.
- The talk emphasizes the importance of avoiding the trap of 'expertise' and maintaining a humble, exploratory mindset in programming and research.
- David Hestenes and Alan Kay highlight how mathematical and conceptual tools can both enable and limit innovation, urging continuous questioning of established methods.