History and Future of Programing Languages

Greetings from the Canberra branch of the Australian Computer Society where Dr Jan Newmarch, from Box Hill Institute, is speaking on "The history and future of programing languages". He sees there will be a division into complex (Java, Scala)and simple (Go, Rust) languages in the future.

Dr Newmarch prefers the simple languages, provided they easily support libraries from other languages. He pointed out the usefulness of reflection, where a program can examine and modify itself.

Dr Newmarch described object-orientated imperative languages as mainstream, with some functional techniques being introduced. He also described the explosion of specialist languages, such as R and frameworks which are almost languages, such as Hadoop.

At question time Dr Newmarch  as asked about Australian developed programming languages. I suggested "Blue", which he explained was a teaching language from University of Sydney. 

While in Canberra, Dr Newmarch has been introducing the Australian Government to the Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry PI is a recent product of the "Cambridge Phenomenon".

ps:  Dr Richard P. Gabriel and Dr Guy Steele reprised their presentation "50 in 50: 50 Programming Languages in 50 Years" in Canberra in 2010.

Future of History on the Web

Michael McKernan will speak on "Doing History Differently" at the Australian National University, 4pm, 15 June 2011.

Books by Michael McKernan:

• The Strength of a Nation: Six Years of Australians Fighting For the Nation and Defending the Homefront in World War II, Michael McKernan
• Beryl Beaurepaire, Michael McKernan
• The Valley: A Story from the Heart of the Land, Michael McKernan
• Gallipoli: A Short History, Michael McKernan
• This War Never Ends: Australian Pows And Families, Michael McKernan

Public Lecture
Doing History Differently

A while ago I was telling my excellent and thorough editor at Allen&Unwin that I had been reading the letters of Manning Clark. 'Who is Manning Clark?' this University of Sydney graduate asked. Writing a history of the ACT Brumbies some years ago one of the sharpest of the players said to me in a friendly way, 'I have no idea what you are doing. What is history?'. Those of us who have worked in History all our lives cannot assume that what we do is understood, or valued.

The resources for writing history have never been more universally available. Forget the reading rooms and libraries of the past, many of us can now do a great deal of our research online. Yet these resources are fundamentally wasted if potential consumers of history do not understand history's relevance and appeal. There is no point in hand-wringing about these things. We need to seek out solutions.

Can commercial television help? This paper looks at a ten part Channel Nine series, currently screening in prime time, history pure and simple, to see what can be done.

Michael McKernan has worked as an academic, museum historian, and has presented history on radio and television. He is a graduate of the ANU. ...

AARNet: 20 Years of the Internet in Australia

The full text of the book "AARNet 20 Years of the Internet in Australia 1989–2009" (By Glenda Korporaal, 2009) is now available free online. AARnet have provided their 130 page book as one large PDF file and as separate chapters:

• Introduction (PDF 0.5 Mb)

1. Chapter 1: The Rise of the Internet: Borne in the USA (PDF 3 Mb)
2. Chapter 2: Australia Begins its Journey (PDF 4 Mb)
3. Chapter 3: AARNet rolls out: 1990-1993 (PDF 3 Mb)
4. Chapter 4: The cuckoo in the nest (PDF 3 Mb)
5. Chapter 5: A new direction (PDF 5 Mb)
6. Chapter 6: The great leap forward (PDF 2 Mb)
7. Chapter 7: The road to AARNet3 (PDF 3 Mb)
8. Chapter 8L: Web 2.0 – A new world (PDF 2 Mb)
9. Chapter 9: The road ahead (2 Mb PDF)

• A note to credits
• AARNet 20 Years of the Internet in Australia 1989–2009: full text (PDF 35 Mb)

AARNet – 20 years of the Internet in Australia documents the history of how the Internet network was established in Australia through AARNet. The book explores how Australia’s commercial Internet network, as we know it today, was originally developed by AARNet. It also documents key individuals, events and milestones that led to the growth and development of a high-speed Internet network dedicated to Australia’s research and education institutions. ...

From: Pioneer of the Internet launches book to commemorate historical milestones, AARnet, 26 Nov 2009

Computing History Tours of Melbourne

The next Computing History Tours of Melbourne are: 1 May, 15 May and 18 July 2010. The tours take in:

1. CSIRAC: Australia's first computer
2. Melbourne's first Computer Room
3. Melbourne's Babbage connection
4. Site of Australia's first supercomputer
5. Monash's first computer
6. Former Melbourne Computer Centre near Albert Park.

Apple iPad in 1996

In 1996 I wrote a future history talk "Australia: The Networked Nation" featuring a hypothetical PADD (named after the devices in Star Trek). My device was to be 176 × 250 x 10 mm. The Apple iPad comes close at 190 x 243 x 13 mm. I had in mind a 3:4 format screen, whereas the iPad has a wider screen.

"Personal Access Display Devices (PADDs) are the ... successor to the primitive Personal Digital Assistants, notebook PCs, radio pagers and mobile phones of 1996. ...

Larger PADDs ... dimensions of a B5 sheet of paper, by 1 cm thick ... touch sensitive screen covering the whole upper surface, which is also a high resolution (2000 x 2000 pixel by 16 million colour) screen. All PADDs have video and audio built in and can operate as what a 1996 person would know as a mobile phone, radio, TV and video cam-corder. ...

The QWERTY keyboard, in its virtual form is still in use for data entry. ..."

From: Australia: The Networked Nation, Tom Worthington, 7 February 1996

However, in retrospect I think a smaller device with a screen about twice the size of an iPhone would be better (the size of smaller PADDs in Star Trek). This is the size of the screen on the smaller Amazon Kindle. It would be about 125 × 88 mm and make a passport (ISO B7) size device which would be easier to hold in one hand. Apple might be reluctant to make a device this small, as it would compete with the iPhone. Kept in a large pocket or handbag, it could be used as a phone via a Bluetooth device (resembling a Star Trek communicator).

My prediction for resolution of the screen was a bit high at 2000 x 2000 pixels and the iPad lacks a camera. The prediction it would run Linux was almost right, with the iPad using a version of Unix (but Linus Torvalds has not got the Nobel prize yet).

I got the bit about online storage right: "Data is stored safely on servers, either owned by the employee's company or a contracted service provider. Data is downloaded as required over the network." My prediction for processing power was a bit low: "equivalent to about four 1996 era Intel Pentium processors", but memory was far too low: "(64 megabytes) to hold the data the user needs immediately".

Apple are a bit late with the iPad as I predicted it would be released in 2005. Some other predictions went better, with Senator Helen Coonan, when Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts commenting on the telecommunications predictions. One prediction which is now coming true, and the current government will be less happy with, is that fibre optic cable to households will prove uneconomic and be overtaken by wireless.

The bit about "Politicians have learnt to be careful about heavy handed attempts at net regulation." is about to come true with the predicted "Internet Party" forming as the Australian branch of The Pirate Party.

Historical Tour of Computing in Melbourne

At the ACS Victorian Branch 2009 Conference someone mentioned there was an Historical Tour of Computing in Melbourne. Unfortunately I missed the tour as I was at the conference. The next one is Sunday 31 May 2009. The tours are run by Caulfield School of Information Technology (Monash University) and are free, apart from your tram ticket. Many of the sites on the tour are accessible without the tour and the tour guide web page provides a useful self-guide. The highlight of any such tour has to be CSIRAC at the Melbourne Museum, the fourth computer in the world and the best preserved.

The Tour:

1. Monash Museum of Computing History
2. Site of Albert Park Barracks and DSD
3. Melbourne's Silicon Mile: St Kilda Road and Fitzroy Street
4. Stanhill
5. Melbourne Observatory: Melbourne's first computer room
6. Victoria Barracks: Australia's first supercomputer
7. St Paul's Cathedral: the Babbage connection
8. National Mutual: Smalltalk-80's Australian debut
9. ICI House
10. Melbourne Museum: CSIRAC
11. Physics Museum, University of Melbourne
12. Old Physics, University of Melbourne: CSIRAC's first Victorian home
    

Neither Microsoft nor Netscape started the web revolution

"Bill Gates: How A Geek Changed The World" a BBS interview with Bill Gates was broadcast by SBS 8 July 2008 (online video from SBS). This was a more than a puff piece with some criticisms of Gates included.

One point made was that Microsoft was late embracing the Internet. Microsoft had to scramble to create a web browser in response to Netscape. But not mentioned was that it was the Mosaic web browser developed by the non profit National Center for Supercomputing Applications which popularized the web. Both Netscape and Microsoft then licensed Mosaic to make their Navigator and Internet Explorer browsers. Early versions were little different from Mosaic or from each other. And I must be about the last person in the world who paid for a copy of Netscape Navigator, shortly before they decided to give it away. ;-)

Program Synopsis
TV Show Name:
Broadcast Date: Tuesday 8 July 2008
Channel: Free to Air / SBS
Broadcast Time: 8.30 pm
Classifications: Other, (CC)
Timeslot Duration: 60 mins
Official title / weblink if available: CUTTING EDGE: BILL GATES

How A Geek Changed The World - After two years of negotiations, BBC filmmaker Fiona Bruce pulled off a rare coup: a candid full-length interview with Bill Gates. For many years the richest man in the world and the founding genius of Microsoft is set to step down from his company and get on with the business of giving away £12 billion through the charitable foundation he runs with his wife Melinda and father William Gates Sr. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation aims to improve the quality of life for people in the US and around the globe, with a focus on tackling health problems in the developing world and improving access to drugs. Bruce's interview and her meetings with Gates' friends and rivals uncover a sometimes irascible character, who has long prided himself on corporate aggression and is only recently said to have begun mellowing. (From the UK, in English)

From: ebroadcast.com.au