• Issue #57: Dress Code,  Vidéothèque,  Women Authors

    Mayuko Inoue

    The archetype of software engineering dress code is quite parochial: a t-shirt (usually featuring a conference or programming language logo, or a geek joke), a pair of jeans, snickers, and a sweatshirt, in case the weather gets more San Francisco-like than you might expect. And that is it. Let us admit it: the "about us" page of software companies often looks like advertising for The Gap, American Apparel, or sometimes even, sadly, Abercrombie & Fitch, minus the abs, of course.

  • Issue #56: Operating Systems,  Vidéothèque

    Ken Ross & Paul Laughton

    What was it like to use a computer without an operating system? We seldom ask ourselves this question, used as we are to download and install the operating system most adapted to our hardware at hand. But merely 60 years ago, the IBM 1401 was the most widely used computer system in the planet, and it did so without a matching operating system. How did it work?

  • Issue #55: Mathematics,  Vidéothèque

    Nemean

    One of my favorite hobbies is called recreational mathematics. This is the kind of revelation that I can only offer in the pages of this magazine and other select locations, feeling confident and hopeful that there is a more receptive public here than, say, at a Christmas dinner conversation or at the pub.

  • Issue #54: Google,  Mega Corporations,  Vidéothèque

    Google TechTalks

    Seventeen years is a long time in our industry. To give us an idea, Gmail appeared eighteen years ago, and in those days Google pledged not to be evil. Those were the days of AJAX web applications, of Prototype versus jQuery, of Ruby on Rails and script.aculo.us. Those were the times before Obama, before the MacBook Air, before the pandemic, before Google Chrome, before the Marvel Cinematic Universe, before Android devices, before Docker and Kubernetes, before the Go programming language, before the V8 JavaScript engine, before the 2008 stock market crash, before Brexit, before SPAs, before Node.js and npm, before Star Wars Episode 7, before HD video was widespread.