Thomas OtterNo, this post isn’t about the founding of HP or Apple.
It is about this shed.
(photo via wikipedia)
This is not just any shed. It is part of Bletchley Park. It is here that women and men deciphered codes in WWII. It is here that the first practical computers were used.
There is a campaign going on to help restore and maintain these buildings. Those of us who work in the computer industry owe this hut a debt of gratitude. Without this hut there would be no SOA, ERP, SaaS and Cloud computing. If you have a moment, give this worthwhile project your support. For the British citizens reading this, there is a petition you can sign here. Thanks to Dr Sue Black for getting this campaign going.
As an industry we are so tied up with thinking about the next great thing, sometimes we forget to look back at those that made what we have today possible. Allan Turing, although now immortalized in the eponymous test, was persecuted after the war for being gay, and he committed suicide because of that persecution.
We ought to pause more often and reflect on those that shaped our industry. We also need to do more to make the software profession more inclusive, whatever the gender, creed and persuasion. That reminds me I need to write my Ava Lovelace post soon.
Category: history software industry Tags: Ava Lovelace, Bletchley Park, Turing
2 responses so far ↓
1 Donald H Taylor February 5, 2009 at 5:43 am
Thomas – well done for raising in one post both the sad state of Bletchley Park, a contender for the title ‘the birthplace of computing’ and our sad, micro-focused technophilia which too often leads us to ignore the bigger picture.
2 JoK February 5, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Now the real question has to be how will Gartner who relies on the technology we all take for granted these days, also help to raise the profile of Bletchley Park?
Do you think they will be up to the challenge?