thanks chris. maybe i have the right quote to that: "humans are good in making things complicated." (brian foote).

concerning mathematica: 1992 the demographic people were still dreaming of having such a tool. a paper of sw/ un poco hw development. i tend to say: from the perspective of spreadsheets. fees of the time included as also the line: "strategies for the future". nice lit.list.

"an enormous body of evermore impressive hardware and software attracts a vast number of intended users who, in developed countries, often can afford the dollar cost of the new hardware and software much more readily than they can find the time to learn to use it effectively."

the cobbler's children are often the last to be shod "Just as objects are good for building programs, so too they are good for building <programming> languages and programming systems." Living Languages

the only think i can say so far: brain foote never stops to talk. he is talking on soft machines in erfurt next month. if anyone has a change: go there and have a drink with him, but don´t think he will let you off before 3 hours are gone :))

erfurt sounds really good. a lot of heros are there: Alan Kay (USA) (tbc), Simon Phipps (Sun) , Dieter Rombach (D), Ted J.Biggerstaff (USA), Henry Thompson (UK), Stephan Schambach (D), Brad Cox (USA), Oscar Nierstrasz (CH), Dave Thomas (USA), Brian Foote (USA), John J.Barton (USA) und Adele Goldberg (USA)

simon phipps, simon phipps: i know him from somewhere else - yes : )), got him: un otra matrix story. the term on his card "xml-evangelist" was the right catchword.

the bathtub curve for software reliability

the upgrades imply feature upgrades, not upgrades for reliability. software will experience a drastic increase in failure rate each time an upgrade is made. The failure rate levels off gradually, partly because of the defects found and fixed after the upgrades. ( Jiantao Pan)

der geeignete talk dazu: how can we get reliable software from unreliable programmers (28.09.2001 in wien) danke grob :)

"interesting work is being done in <programming> computers to solve problems with requires a high degree of intelligence in humans. however, certain elementary verbal reasoning processes so simple that they can be carried out by any non-feeble-minded human have yet to be simulated by machine programs. this paper will discuss programs to manipulate in a suitable formal language ... " memo von john mccarthy über programs with common sense

ein fundstück für das historien archiv. aus vielen gründen: wegen john mccarthy, wegen "advice taker", the proposed program for solving problems for manipulating sentences in formal languages, aber auch wegen des vermerkes auf dem memo: "do not borrow" und dem titel der konferenz, wo dieses papier präsentiert wurde: "symposium on the mechanization of thought processes, 1958.