History of Computing: Software Issues: International Conference on the History of Computing, ICHC 2000 April 5–7, 2000 Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum Paderborn, Germany

273 Pages·2002·5.93 MB·English

by  Ulf Hashagen

History of Computing:
Software Issues
Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg GmbH
Ulf Hashagen
Reinhard Keil-Slawik
Arthur L. Norberg (Eds.)
History of Computing:
Software Issues
International Conference on the History of Computing,
ICHC 2000
AprilS-7,2000
Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum
Paderborn, Germany
Springer
Editors
Ulf Hashagen
Münchner Zentrum für Wissenschafts-und Technikgeschichte
Deutsches Museum
80306 München, Germany
[email protected]
Reinhard Keil-Slawik
Heinz Nixdorf Institut
Universität Paderborn
Fürstenallee 11
33102 Paderborn, Germany
[email protected]
Arthur L. Norberg
Charles Babbage Institute
University of Minnesota
Department of Computer Science
200 Union Street, SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
[email protected]
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication applied for.
Die Deutsche Bibliothek -CIP-Einheitsaufnahme
History of computing: software issues I International Conference on the History of Computing (ICHC 2000),
April 5-7, 2000, Heinz-Nixdorf-MuseumsForum, Paderborn, Germany. Ulf Hashagen (ed.).-
Berlin; Heidelberg; New York; Barcelona; Hongkong; London; Mailand; Paris; Tokio: Springer, 2002
ISBN 978-3-642-07653-4 ISBN 978-3-662-04954-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-662-04954-9
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Originally published by Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York in 2002.
Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover Ist edition 2002
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Preface
The papers in this volume were presented at a conference that was designed to
map out historical study needs in one area of the history of computing, namely,
software. The Paderbom conference was sponsored by the Heinz Nixdorf Muse
umsForum and co-sponsored by the Charles Babbage Institute and the Heinz
Nixdorf Institute of the University of Paderbom. The idea for the conference
emerged from the consideration of a larger concept that was to prepare a new
handbook on the history of computing. Believing that preparation of the handbook
would encounter obstacles in some areas of computing that have not received
adequate attention from historians, the originators of the idea of the handbook
decided on aseries of mapping conferences to try to overcome the obstacles, of
which the Paderbom conference is the first. The organizers of the conference
invited a group of historians, sociologists, and computer scientists to present pa
pers and comments about a selected set of issues in the history of software. The
organizing committee consisted of William Aspray (Computing Research Asso
ciation, Washington, D.C.), Martin Campbell-Kelly (University of Warwick,
U.K.), Ulf Hashagen (Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum, Paderbom), Reinhard Keil
Slawik (Heinz Nixdorf Institute, University of Paderbom), Michael S. Mahoney
(Princeton University) and Arthur L. Norberg (Charies Babbage Institute, Uni ver
sity of Minnesota).
The ambitious overall objective of this conference was to review our present
understanding of the history of software and to establish an agenda for further
research. The program of the conference was an attempt to explore the topic of the
history of software in a new way. We neither intended nor expected the product to
be a finished history of any of the topics included in the conference, nor did we
want a continuation of previous efforts to describe histories of individual software
artifacts. The conference presenters were asked not to attempt to provide finished
histories for any of the areas of software history. Instead, speakers and commenta
tors were asked to comment on the fundamental elements that make software what
it is, and offer an exploration of our current understanding of software and its
history. The organizers decided to address two different perspectives in the con
ference: the perspective of the computer scientists and the perspective of the histo
rians and sociologists interested in the larger context of a development. Hence,
computer scientists, entrepreneurs, historians, and sociologists met to discuss the
VI Preface
selected set of issues. Between speakers and commentators, we hoped to merge
the two perspectives into one scheme for investigating the history of software.
We hope that the volume presented here is only the first step in a larger series
of conferences and scholarly studies on the history of software. Many issues had
to be left out, and the attempts to structure the field have to be regarded as imma
ture. The dialogue started here, especially between historians and computer scien
tists, has to be continued. This dialogue will be by no means easy to conduct,
because with software the object of historical study comes close to our personal
life and experiences. It is, however, our dear hope that this dialogue will create for
the reader as much of achallenging learning experience as it was for the historians
and computer scientists attending this conference.
Acknowledgments
The way the book evolved also made great demands on everyone engaged in its
production. We are especially indebted to Sandra Sewzyk (Heinz Nixdorf Muse
umsForum), Andreas Brennecke (Heinz Nixdorf Institute, University of Pader
born) and Lars Klein (University of Paderborn), who coordinated the production
of the book and eventually assumed responsibility for the layout of the text as a
whole. Our gratitude also goes to Philip Bacon, who took care of correcting our
non-native speakers' English. Finally, we would like to thank Ingeborg Mayer and
Dr. Hans Wössner of Springer-Verlag. The extraordinary care and patience they
all showed here have contributed to the overall quality of the book.
VIf Hashagen
Reinhard Keil-Slawik
Arthur L. Norberg
Munich, Paderborn, and Minneapolis, January 2002
Table of Contents
Introduction ......................................................................................................... 1
Prologue: A Computer Pioneer's Talk .............................................................. 9
Pioneering W ork in Software During the 50s in Central Europe .................. 11
Friedrich L. Bauer
Part 1: Software as Science .............................................................................. 23
Software as Science-Science as Software ................................................... 25
Michael S. Mahoney
Commentary on Michael S. Mahoney ........................................................... 49
David Edge
Software as Science? Commentary on Michael S. Mahoney ........................ 55
Gerhard Goos
Discussion following "Software as Science" ................................................ 61
Thomas Haigh
Part 2: Software as Engineering ...................................................................... 63
Software as Engineering ................................ ................................................ 65
James E. Tomayko
Commentary on James E. Tomayko .............................................................. 77
Albert Endres
Commentary on James E. Tomayko .............................................................. 83
Bruce E. Seely
Discussion following "Software as Engineering" ......................................... 93
Mary Croarken
Part 3: Software as Reliable Artefact .............................................................. 95
A View from the Sonnenbichl:
On the Historical Sociology of Software and System Dependability ............ 97
Donald MacKenzie
Commentary on Donald MacKenzie ........................................................... 123
BemdMahr
Dependability Then and Now: Commentary on Donald MacKenzie .......... 127
Victoria Stavridou
VIII Table of Contents
Discussion following "Software as Reliable Artefact" .......... ..................... 135
Mary Croarken and David Grier
Part 4: Software as Labor Process ................................................................ 137
Software as Labor Process.................... ........................................................ 139
Nathan Ensmenger and William Aspray
Are Programmers Oppressed by Monopoly Capital, or Shall the Geeks
Inherit the Earth? Commentary on Nathan Ensmenger & William Aspray 167
David A. Hounshell
A Commentary on David A. Hounshell's Commentary
on "Software as Labor Process" ........... ... ....... .................. ........................... 177
Nathan Ensmenger and William Aspray
Discussion following "Software as Labor Process" ...... ............................. 179
Mary Croarken
Part 5: Software as Economic Activity .......................................................... 183
Software as an Economic Activity ...... ................................................ ........ 185
Martin Campbell-Kelly
Commentary on Martin Campbell-Kelly ..................................................... 203
Pierre-E. Mounier-Kuhn
Commentary on Martin Campbell-Kelly ..................................................... 211
David C. Mowery
A Note on Martin Campbell-Kelly's "Software as an Economic Activity"
and David Mowery's "Commentary" .......................................................... 219
David A. Hounshell
Discussion following "Software as an Economic Activity" ........................ 223
Thomas Haigh
Part 6: Museums and Exhibitions ..... ......... ......................................... .......... 225
Collecting Software: Preserving Information in an Object-Centred Culture 227
Doron Swade
Commentary on Doron Swade .................................................................... 237
Joachim Fischer
Towards a Software Museum: Challenges and Opportunities ..................... 245
Ernst Denert and Klaus-Peter Löhr
Towards a Software Museum: Challenges and Opportunities ..................... 261
Friedrich L. Bauer
Preserving Software in History Museums: A Material Culture Approach .. 263
David K. Allison
Commentary on David K. Allison,
"Preserving Software in History Museums" ................................................ 273
Hartrnut Petzold
Epilogue ........................................................................................................... 275
Probing the Elephant: How Do the Parts Fit Together? .............................. 277
Michael S. Mahoney
Introduction
The stimulus for this conference came from a recognition that the historical soft
ware literature focuses too narrowly on a few technical developments and not
enough on the wider range of issues in areas such as software development, appli
cation, processes, and people. In one perspective, the history of software is now
about at the stage that hardware history was 15 years ago. Writers on computing
history over the past two decades, both in and out of university settings, have
focused primarilyon hardware and firms. Entries about software topics seem to
emulate articles on hardware, giving precedence to particular languages, or are set
pieces about a particular application such as the United States Government's
SAGE air defense project and the Bank of America's ERMA system, which stood
for Electronic Recording Machine-Accounting, both projects of the 1950s.
Within the expanding bibliography on the his tory of information processing, the
history of software has the least number of entries. Virtually all the literature about
the history of software presents reviews of the development of a particular soft
ware artifact. Articles on programming languages, operating systems, applications
programming, and network protoco!s, to name only a few, make up the examples
in this area, along with a group of essays on members of the software industry.
While these articles and books are good and useful, we still have little appreciation
for the overall history of software; certainly nothing similar to our history of
hardware. While we focus on our way of interacting with one another through the
Internet, people outside the field of computing as a profession often fail to appre
ciate the extent to which computers have become an integral part of our lives. Our
ways of doing business have changed: we practice medicine in an entirely differ
ent, and more effective, manner, and many of us even play differently.
As a result, the scholarly literature about software history, good as it is for
some topics, is inadequate for pursuing any complete analysis of the history of
computing. In the view of the organizers, if we continue the trend of only prepar
ing articles on separate topics in software history , such as another review of some
operating system or adescription of some ostensibly new application, we will only
lengthen the time it will take to develop an overall picture of software's signifi
cance and history. We need to broaden our approach to the history of software,
because the information processing activity marches on, relentlessly adding to our
burden.