Weddings and Ramblings

*warning. Extremely computer-nerdy geeky contents*

I remember sometime about 2 years ago, I attended an internal workshop/training conducted by an Australian colleague. He’s one of the company’s enterprise architecture consultants. Anyway he brought up a very interesting question that’s still stuck in my head.

Being technology people in a world leading software company, where innovation, research and development is critical, he asked us this (bunch of) questions.

Who is/are :
1) Tim Berners-Lee
2) James Gosling
3) Gang of Four
4) Booch, Rumburgh and Jacobson

Ok, i admit. I have no idea who 1, 3 and 4 is, but I’ve personally met James Gosling a year ago when I attended an event by Sun Microsystems. Ok, back to the question

1) Tim Berners-Lee. The person who invented the world wide web.
2) James Gosling. The father of Java technology
3) Gang of four, who gave us design patterns
4) Booch, Rumburgh and Jacobson, who gave the world UML.

Next question. What are they working on now ?

To be a successful computer scientist, we need to be aware of what is going on in the world. No doubt these people have contributed to shaping the IT industry to where it is now, we seem to have forgotten that these great people are working on other stuff now. After all, these people so have a powerful voice and presence in the community, and even a simple thought could spawn off what could be potentially the next big thing in the industry. In the industry, we have to recognise that, unless we plan to stay as a frog in the well and remain a lowly programmer for the rest of our lives.

Ok, i didn’t manage to find out what the Gang of Four are/were doing (or if they are still alive) as well as what B-R-J were working on, now that Rational is part of IBM, but the last thing i heard about James Gosling, he was still in Sun working in Software Tools. Tim Berner-Lee was working on something called the semantic web, or Web 2.0.

I haven’t really looked at any detail specifications or documents on what semantic web is, what I do know is a segment of Web 2.o covers what is called social networking. Its forming networks based on a I-know-u, u-know-him, he-knows-her kinda thing. So as we expand our social networks, we information can be disseminated. Something like that Six-Degrees of Kevin Bacon experiment. If fact, we have started to see websites popping out that represent these ideas. Friendster, flickr, blogging … all these are physical evidence of the concept of semantic web. And guess what, these were some of the biggest things happening in the industry.

Anyway, enough said on this topic, before I embarass myself further with my lack of knowledge in these areas.

Tagged: tech