It is possible that software is not like anything else, that it is meant to be discarded: that the whole point is to always see it as soap bubble?December 2nd, 2008 by Paul Ceruzzi
I was recently asked for some advice on how best to present the history of software in the Computer History Museum’s timeline of computer history exhibit. I haven’t visited that facility for a while, but based on what I know of the people who work there, I am sure they are doing an excellent job. Telling the history of software – whether it be in a museum exhibit, book, or research paper – in not easy. Why? I wrote a little bit about this in my book, A History of Modern Computing. Although I devoted a chapter (Chapter Three) on the early history of software, several of the reviews on Amazon.com were critical of the book because it didn’t deal with software! Why did they feel that way, after I had devoted what I thought was a lot of space to the topic?
The problem begins with the definition. If software is the set of procedures by which one operates machinery, then it is as old as machinery itself. How to get a boat through a canal lock, for example. I’ve watched the National Park Service pass a boat through a lock of the C&O Canal in Washington, D.C., and it is a very complex algorithm that has to be executed precisely, or else the boat won’t go through the lock. But that is too broad a definition. Knuth would probably begin software with the calculation of the date of Easter – The first Sunday after the first full moon after March 21. Not an easy calculation at any time. Knuth says “There are many indications that the sole important application of arithmetic in Europe during the Middle Ages was the calculation of the Easter date…”(Art of Computer Programming, vol. 1, pp. 155-156).
Last spring I noticed that although the New Testament story of Easter is clearly associated with the celebration of Passover, in 2008 Easter was on March 23, while Passover was on April 19-20. What would a software engineer say about this? I was told (by a Unitarian!) that the discrepancy had to do with the difference between “March 21” and “the spring equinox.” So it is a specification problem.
One more thing. As a museum curator, I find it almost impossible to show software in a museum. By definition it is everything that is not hard, so where are the artifacts?