Talk:Computer science/Catalogs/Breakthroughs

Article Checklist for "Computer science/Catalogs/Breakthroughs"

Workgroup category or categories	Computers Workgroup, History Workgroup [Categories OK]
Article status	Developing article: beyond a stub, but incomplete
Underlinked article?	Yes
Basic cleanup done?	Yes
Checklist last edited by	Pat Palmer 16:32, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

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Instructions

(copied from article page, where they've been commented out)

This is a list of people who have made major conceptual breakthroughs in computer science that we need to mention somehow in the history of computing article (which is currently organized as a timeline not amenable to inclusion of people per se). If unlinked, these are placeholders until an article can be written. The summary should describe briefly the most famous thing the person did.

This list should not include people just because they invented a new computer, operating system, or type of software, unless they devised an innovation which was so compelling that it was adopted by everyone later because it was such a good idea (and you can identify what that innovation was, and document it). Let's keep this for the really great ones for now.

This article might be renamed, moved or removed later once we figure out how to structure more of the CZ:Computers Workgroup articles.

Please also alphabetize by last name. Pat Palmer 16:06, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

Who belongs?

I'd drop Linus Torvalds, and add John von Neumann and Norbert Weiner. The qualifications on Torvalds' achievement make it clear that his breakthrough doesn't meet the criteria established for this list. von Neumann's definitely do, and I believe that Weiner's do, also. I'd also add Dennis Ritchie, who as a co-creator of Unix, has done more groundbreaking work than Linus Torvalds. Anthony Argyriou 16:24, 22 May 2007 (CDT)

Ok - I added the three I mentioned, plus Ada Lovelace. I still think that Linus does not deserve a place merely for developing Linux. He may have made other, more fundamental computer-science contributions, but I am not aware of them. The listed accomplishments of Backus and Tukey also seem to not justify a place here, and Fourier is questionable, as his work seems to be much more mathematical than computer science, as well. I leave the decision to remove or not to others. Anthony Argyriou 18:53, 30 May 2007 (CDT)

It is a matter of opinion, of course. As it happens, Linus Torwalds accomplished what no one else (including the Open Software Foundation started by Richard Stallman) had succeeded in doing in 10 years, which is make a Unix-like kernel that would run on the same commodity-cost PC's that Windows ran on. There was one exception--Dr. Andrew Tanenbaum had created Minix, but it cost money and it was used mainly for teaching at the time. When OSF then married their utilities such as Emacs with Linus' new kernel, which Linus forced to remain "completely and totally free", a movement was born. Linus "changed" what was happening in the computer marketplace fundamentally; maybe his breakthrough was not a science discovery, but it had enormous impact. So for now, let's leave him on the list. I do appreciate your comments. I would take Tukey off the list, probably, but I don't know a lot about him, so I'd want to research that first. Pat Palmer 10:38, 31 May 2007 (CDT)

There probably ought to be a parallel list to this one which lists computer industry pioneers, with Torvalds, Bill Gates, Jobs & Wozniak, Stallman, possibly the developers of Unix, Osborne, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, and others.

Bill Gates did nothing that could be called a fundamental computer science breakthrough, but he's done more to shape the state of the industry than anyone else. Some of what he did in the early days would qualify as a technical tour de force, but it was more in applying existing computer science or extending beyond the state of the art in programming. If I had a good idea what to title it, I'd create it myself. Which list would Tim Berners-Lee belong on? Anthony Argyriou 13:26, 31 May 2007 (CDT)

Proposed deletions

I can think of no reason why Linus Torvalds should be on this list. Did the Linux kernel introduce any fundamental innovations to computer science. To be sure, Linux has had a huge influence on the history of computers, but that's not the same thing. Similarly, I'm not sure why John Tukey is on the list. Joseph Fourier is a tough one. He made fundamental contributions to an area or mathematics that is important in computing, but I'm not sure that means he needs to be on this list. More generally, I wonder if fundamental innovation in electronics, such as the development of the transistor or vacuum tube warrant inclusion here. Drawing boundaries can be difficult. Greg Woodhouse 14:31, 31 May 2007 (CDT)

Greg, I agree with you that it's difficult. Additionally, can it be said people can make conceptual breakthroughs, but if it's never implemented as a part of the evolution of computers shouldn't it be removed from the list? In the case of Linus Torvalds, he can be absolutely credited with the bolstering of an open-source community and development/contributions of software communities, but I doubt he made any great leaps and bounds in computer science; maybe in social science among computer experts.

Arguably, computer science is often closely tied in with information theory and processing; many computer scientists are in fact programmers that helped lead to the development of something. I would add anyone who writes a software emulation of quantum computing to a "list of people who made conceptual breakthroughs in quantum computing science". Or perhaps the guy who discovered a way to output digital electrical signals to a monitor to this particular list; after all he is probably one of the most significant enablers of computer science. The man who invented the first real digital computer program language should be in this list. However someone who decreased the size of the next generation of transister cores 2 nanometers? Hardly significant.--Robert W King 14:54, 31 May 2007 (CDT)

One remark can be made about Linus Torvalds: his creation of Linux was one of the basics that lead to open source software and GPL. As such he should be in the list, as Linux is a true open source project. So the creation of an OS, or any OS for that matter after the first standard OS-es is not that spectacular, however Linux is an open sourc OS and that makes it remarkable. Robert Tito |  Talk  16:00, 31 May 2007 (CDT)

The GPL predates Linux. Fredrik Johansson 16:05, 31 May 2007 (CDT)

Just to be clear: I absolutely agree that writing an operating system kernel (and he really did more than that) is an impressive accomplishment. Few people would even attempt such a thing. But it is not at all clear why this should be considered a breakthrough in computer science. I think that creating a separate list for computer industry pioneers makes a lot of sense. Greg Woodhouse 16:30, 31 May 2007 (CDT)

quantum computing doubtful

While we're picking at the list, how about quantum computing? Although it is interesting, it is not yet realized to be practical in any applied way, and we do not yet know that it will ever be. So maybe it should not be on this list. Which is not to say that we should not write about it here; I'd just refrain from touting it as "an accomplishment" because it's not "done" yet. Pat Palmer 18:15, 2 June 2007 (CDT)

recently Quantum Computing was shown to be practicle, as in applicable - at a cost. However not to any large scale application and deployment of the technology. Even the notion of quantum cryptography as being real safe turned out to be as safe as any other cryptographic solution: not all together that safe. keys nomatter their origins can be broken.. Robert Tito |  Talk  18:28, 2 June 2007 (CDT)

Even if it doesn't turn out that quantum computing proves to be a practical approach to building computers, I still believe it represents an important breakthrough in computer science. The reason is that it is a different approach to computation, and one that provides basic insights into the essential nature of computation. As it happens, there is progress being made in building quantum computers, but that is a different issue. The issue is a) Is computation necessarily something that can be modeled by a Turing machine? and b) Do these models accurately reflect the complexity of the task? As Robert Tito has pointed out, quantum computation fundamentally challenges b), and it has long been axiomatic in computational complexity theory. That alone is enough to qualify quantum computing for inclusion on this list. Greg Woodhouse 21:14, 2 June 2007 (CDT)

List of computer industry pioneers

I've started List of computer industry pioneers, and started to populate it. Please add more as you see fit. Anthony Argyriou 12:51, 4 July 2007 (CDT)