Hello, everyone; I'm Joel. I have been involved in computing since my student days in the late 60s, so I've been around since before "structured programming". 🙂 I somehow found out about the weekly newsletter, and that eventually led me here.

Hi Joel! Glad to have you. I didn't get my first taste of programming until the 90's, which was high school for me. I have a deep appreciation for CS/programming history, though and I'm pretty interested in understanding more deeply what it was like before my time. When I was in college I got degrees in both CS and Art, and its an interesting contrast how much more emphasis art has on their history (its much older and wider, of course). Still I think CS is perhaps the worst of all areas about studying and caring about their own history. And the industry is even worse, with the cult of the new and a memory of a goldfish. Is there anything important that's been lost or forgotten along the way that you wish people would remember or recognize?

uff … your words echo what Alan Kay has been saying quite a few times… (about CS not caring or looking at its own history and very few new ideas coming in)

Oh, nice, I’m gonna enjoy this interview. I just finished Waldrop’s The Dream Machine. It was really good! And yeah, I’ve seen many Alan Kay talks, I’ve definitely been influenced 🤣