Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!rochester!kodak!doering
From: doering@kodak.UUCP (Paul F. Doering)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Implications of powerful systems
Message-ID: <1803@kodak.UUCP>
Date: 31 Mar 89 16:41:05 GMT
References: <10167@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Reply-To: rochester!kodak!doering or doering@kodak.com (Paul F. Doering)
Distribution: na
Organization: Kodak Research, Rochester NY
Lines: 43

In  <10167@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> John D Woolverton writes on the
subject of the implications of powerful systems --

> One of the side effects of all these bigger and faster computers
> are that more options and effects are being added, and this is good
> but it also allows less efficient and sloppier code.  Given, that
> all applications don't need to be written in assembly any more,
> but there are quite a few programs that I have looked through,
> that are incredibly sloppy.
> 
> It is sad that as machines go faster, some of the same programs
> we always used go slower.

John, it seems that at least part of the history of technology has
involved making it possible for humans to survive while becoming
progressively less competent at some previously necessary skill.  We
can cite cooking, driving, hunting, farming, and --alas -- coding.
(No flames, please, from cooks, chauffeurs, hunters, or farmers.  I'm
referring to the bulk of humankind, not to those of you who have
elected to remain proficient.)

In his must-read book "The Media Lab: Inventing the future at MIT"
Stewart Brand cites Nicholas Negroponte's observation that eventually
our appliances will have more MIPS than our computers.  I think that
we can expect those refrigerator-driving chips to be substantially
better programmed than most modest-sized computers will be, because
there is a clear way for an accountant to evaluate what a business
has spent on the chip's education but no clear way to assign $-loss
to an inefficient package running in the company's desktops.

Software sells hardware.  Bigger programs sell more hardware.  The
incentive is there for our suppliers, John: sloppiness will not be
penalized, because _permitting_ sloppiness enriches the vendors.

Portia Isaacson commented that someday Computer Science would be no
more august than Refrigerator Science is today.  She may have
understated the case.  Maybe the _real_ skill will belong to the
programmers of refrigerators.
-- 
=======================  ===================================================
Paul Doering (for self)  Once a new technology rolls over you, if you're not
rochester!kodak!doering  part of the steamroller, you're part of the road.
=======================  ========================== -Stewart Brand =========