Jim Henson

By Adrian Kosmaczewski, November 6th, 2023

There is so much content about IBM online that it became quite complicated to pick an entry for the Vidéothèque section this month. We are talking about a company with monthly marketing budgets bigger in absolute numbers than the average yearly payroll of a small or medium enterprise; and with more than 100 years of history, there are quite a few stories to be told about it.

Michael Stonebraker

By Adrian Kosmaczewski, October 2nd, 2023

Since the first Turing Award in 1966 (Alan J. Perlis) until the last one at the time of this writing (Robert Metcalfe), there have been four laureates related to database technology. First, Charles W. Bachman in 1973, for "his outstanding contributions to database technology." Then, Ted Codd in 1981, for "his fundamental and continuing contributions to the theory and practice of database management systems." Third, Jim Gray in 1998 for "seminal contributions to database and transaction processing research and technical leadership in system implementation." Finally, Michael Stonebraker in 2014, for "fundamental contributions to the concepts and practices underlying modern database systems."

Bertrand Russell

By Adrian Kosmaczewski, September 4th, 2023

Philosophy is a weird subject. Many of us have had to learn some of it in high school, but we quickly dismissed it as we move forward in life, only to rediscover it as soon as we hit some midlife crisis along the way. Or, at least, that was the experience of this author. Yet philosophy is the only real bridge uniting all sciences, and as such deserves a much brighter spot on it. In particular, the road that led us to the computer was primarily built by philosophers, and in particular, by Bertrand Russell, whose 1959 interview is the subject of this month's Vidéothèque article.

Dartmouth College

By Adrian Kosmaczewski, August 7th, 2023

In August 2014, Dartmouth College published a video commemorating the 50th anniversary of the BASIC programming language, the subject of this month's Vidéothèque section. It features original footage from the 1960s and interviews of former students and team members, including Professor Thomas Kurtz, who was 85 years old at the time. But the heart and soul of the video is, without any doubt, Professor John Kemeny himself; not only his technical contributions, which were outstanding by every standard, but also his open personality and progressive spirit.

Guy Kawasaki

By Adrian Kosmaczewski, July 3rd, 2023

There is a website out there providing an answer to the question "What is Developer Relations?," a question that this author, whose job title is precisely that one, gets a lot. According to this resource, Developer Relations is an umbrella term encompassing three major areas of activity: "Community," "Content," and "Product;" a perfect description of a job role, at least as far as this author is concerned.

Mayuko Inoue

By Adrian Kosmaczewski, June 5th, 2023

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.

Ken Ross & Paul Laughton

By Adrian Kosmaczewski, May 1st, 2023

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?

Nemean

By Adrian Kosmaczewski, April 3rd, 2023

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.

Google TechTalks

By Adrian Kosmaczewski, March 6th, 2023

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.

John Romero

By Adrian Kosmaczewski, February 6th, 2023

What happened in the world in 1993? Czechoslovakia separated in a peaceful process into two countries. Bill Clinton became the 42nd president of the USA. A bomb detonated in the basement of the World Trade Center. Janet Reno became the first female Attorney General of the USA. Jiang Zemin became President of the People's Republic of China. The WHO declared tuberculosis a global emergency. A "fan" stabbed Monica Seles in the back. Crowds were protesting against Slobodan Milošević in Belgrade. Andrew Miles solved Fermat's Last Theorem. Miguel Indurain won the Tour de France. The Maastricht Treaty took effect, creating the European Union. And finally, the Hubble Space Telescope took pictures without suffering from myopia.