What Makes the History of Software Hard

Mahoney, Michael S.

doi:10.1109/mahc.2008.55

Cited by 43 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Students were made well aware that current technology is deeply rooted in past achievements and that understanding these seminal ideas might help them in mastering contemporary problems. Thus, Michael Mahoney's observation that ''revolution talk in general hides the continuities that tie the present to the past, or rather the continuities through which the past informs the present'' 14 should have carried over to students of the TRACES class. Unfortunately, to arrive at this realization-that the past indeed informs the present-students must already have some appreciation for the reality of contemporary computing.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Seminar Looking for Traces of History

Mittermeir

2008

IEEE Annals Hist. Comput.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Seminar Looking for Traces of History

Mittermeir

2008

IEEE Annals Hist. Comput.

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“…Most of the history of software engineering remains to be written [10,11,26], and our history is not intended to be comprehensive. Rather, our goal is to equip students to understand software by understanding why earlier programmers adopted certain principles to create that software.…”

Section: Brief History Of Se Principlesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching students to understand large programs by understanding historical context

McMillan

Oosterhoff

2014

Companion Proceedings of the 36th International Conference on Software Engineering

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Program comprehension is one of the most important challenges that new software developers face. Educators have sought to prepare students for this challenge through handson software development projects. These projects teach students effective software engineering principles. But, students often struggle to see the value of these principles in class projects, and therefore struggle to recognize them outside the classroom. The inevitable result is that these students have difficulty comprehending large programs after graduation. In this paper, we argue that a remedy to this problem is to teach the history of how software development principles were created. In this collaborative work with the Notre Dame Department of History, we present a course that blends a discussion of this history with a hands-on software project. We present a summary of the history covered in our course, and reflect on our teaching experience.

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“…One can build digital collections of software, to be run either in LHT 31,2 emulators or on original hardware (Shustek, 2006). One can also collect documents relevant to the history of computing and its historical cultural milieu (Cortada, 2002;Mahoney, 2008). If such documents were born physical, they can be collected in the original physical form or can be digitized.…”

Section: Retrocomputing As Preservationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Retrocomputing as preservation and remix

Takhteyev

DuPont

2013

Library Hi Tech

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If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The paper's aim is to describe the world of retrocomputing, a constellation of largely non-professional practices involving old computing technology. It seeks to show how retrocomputing serves the goals of collection and preservation, particularly in regards to historic software, and how retrocomputing practices challenge traditional notions of authenticity. It then seeks to propose an alternative conceptualization and suggest new avenues for collaboration between retrocomputing practitioners and memory institutions. Design/methodology/approach -The paper is based on extensive observation of retrocomputing projects, conducted primarily online. Findings -Retrocomputing includes many activities that can be seen as constituting collection and preservation. At the same time, it is often transformative, producing assemblages that "remix" fragments from the past with newer elements or joining together historic components that were never combined before. While such "remix" may seem to undermine preservation, it also allows for fragments of computing history to be reintegrated into a living, ongoing practice, contributing to preservation in a broader sense. The seemingly unorganized nature of retrocomputing assemblages also provides space for alternative "situated knowledges" and histories of computing, which can sometimes be quite sophisticated.Research limitations/implications -Retrocomputing challenges established notions of collection and preservation. A "situated knowledges" perspective provides a possible resolution. Practical implications -Retrocomputing presents memory institutions (and libraries in particular) with an opportunity for new forms of collaboration in collection and preservation of software applications. Originality/value -The paper puts at the center the ways in which retrocomputing challenges the established notions of collection and preservation. It offers alternative conceptualizations that suggest new forms of collaboration.

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What Makes the History of Software Hard

Cited by 43 publications

References 6 publications

A Seminar Looking for Traces of History

A Seminar Looking for Traces of History

Teaching students to understand large programs by understanding historical context

Retrocomputing as preservation and remix

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