What's the definition of a heatsink for a hot journalist? Answer: the local boozer
|
|
|
Great Britons in IT listed
By popular demand
Mon Dec 07 2009, 16:00
THE US IT PRESS would have you believe that Information Technology was invented over there, but that is just not true. The foundations of IT were laid in Britain long before the US got up to speed, and British IT theoreticians, researchers, engineers and entreprenuers have contributed greatly.
The INQUIRER's sister site V3 has compiled its list of the Top 10 Great Britons in IT history, so you might as well head over there and read it. Whether you're a Brit or not, you know you want to. µ
Share this:
Share
Advertisement
Subscribe to INQ newsletters
Advertisement
INQ Poll
This has always been the issue with the UK.
We are great innovators but hopeless at exploiting/marketing them.
That or as history has shown everytime we come up with a world beating design we are hit by financial hardship and have to hand it over lockstock to the Americans for pennies.
Such is life.
It's comforting to look back on this stuff but there is no time for resting on laurels.
Britain seems to me (a colonial) to have a few far out and incredible innovators and a very large number of people who don't want to be different from their neighbour.
Innovators always look misguided and stupid when they start out. They are the little guys with odd ideas. We should all be encouraging rather than scornful to things that we think are weird of little because if it isn't odd then it's not really new and innovative, is it?
Don't look for innovation from big companies either. They are innovation killers.
A very good point. Sir Clive just wanted to build his silly electric vehicle.
The Acorn developed BBC machine and its implementation of Basic really was leaps and bounds ahead of anything at the time. In fact even now it can hold it's head up high.
No mention of Sophie Wilson who designed the ARM processor, which I suspect everyone reading has within a couple of feet of where they are sitting right now.
Nice to see Flowers on the list though.
Taking away the genuine Great Britons (Lovelace, Babbage, Flowers, Turing) and those who are of slightly lesser stature (Berners-Lee, Clarke, Jones) and all you have left in that list are more the Great Britards of IT than the Great Britons: corporate jockeys and pushers of solutions for problems that wouldn't exist had everyone done their homework.
For those upset by such an assessment of Sirs Clive and Alan, although they got a lot of gear out there to the punters, it wasn't really great gear, particularly Sir Clive's stuff. There's a good reason Curry and Hauser scooped them at the Beeb, you know.
Where's Alan Cox?
The continual slide of The Inq becoming nothing more than a portal for V3 stories continues.