Path: csiph.com!weretis.net!feeder6.news.weretis.net!feeder.usenetexpress.com!feeder-in1.iad1.usenetexpress.com!border1.nntp.dca1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!news.misty.com!news.iecc.com!.POSTED.news.iecc.com!nerds-end From: "Derek M. Jones" Newsgroups: comp.compilers Subject: Re: PhD or books on history of individual languages Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2018 11:12:11 +0000 Organization: virginmedia.com Lines: 17 Sender: news@iecc.com Approved: comp.compilers@iecc.com Message-ID: <18-12-005@comp.compilers> References: <18-11-009@comp.compilers> <18-11-010@comp.compilers> <18-11-011@comp.compilers> <18-11-012@comp.compilers> <18-11-015@comp.compilers> <18-12-002@comp.compilers> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Info: gal.iecc.com; posting-host="news.iecc.com:2001:470:1f07:1126:0:676f:7373:6970"; logging-data="39962"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@iecc.com" Keywords: history, comment Posted-Date: 03 Dec 2018 10:46:44 EST X-submission-address: compilers@iecc.com X-moderator-address: compilers-request@iecc.com X-FAQ-and-archives: http://compilers.iecc.com In-Reply-To: <18-12-002@comp.compilers> Content-Language: en-US Xref: csiph.com comp.compilers:2133 Kaz, >> Social scientists and English majors are missing out on >> writing about an unexplored area of knowledge. > > Which brings up the point that digging through historic programming > languages is not really Ph. D. level work in the field of Computer Science. I'm not suggesting that this topic is appropriate, or not, for any academic discipline. Historians of computing are starting to proliferate, but mostly hardware at the moment: https://shape-of-code.coding-guidelines.com/2018/03/13/historians-of-computing/ [There's plenty of software history in IEEE Annals. The current issue is about the history of desktop publishing, 2% about the typesetters and laser printers, and 98% about the software. -John]