Code_ The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software - Charles Petzold [156]
While ALGOL-like languages have retained their dominance, in recent years they've picked up certain enhancements that have resulted in what are called object-oriented languages. These languages are useful for working with the graphical operating systems that I'll describe in the next (and last) chapter.
Chapter 25. The Graphical Revolution
Readers of the September 10, 1945, issue of Life magazine encountered mostly the usual eclectic mix of articles and photographs: stories about the end of the Second World War, an account of dancer Vaslav Nijinsky's life in Vienna, a photo essay on the United Auto Workers. Also included in that issue was something unexpected: a provocative article by Vannevar Bush (1890–1974) about the future of scientific research. Van Bush (as he was called) had already made his mark in the history of computing by designing one of the most significant analog computers—the differential analyzer—between 1927 and 1931 while an engineering professor at MIT. At the time of the Life article in 1945, Bush was serving as Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, which had been responsible for coordinating U.S. scientific activities during the war, including the Manhattan Project.
Condensed somewhat from its first appearance two months earlier in The Atlantic Monthly, Bush's Life article "As We May Think" described some hypothetical inventions of the future ostensibly for the scientist and researcher who must deal with an ever-increasing number of technical journals and articles. Bush saw microfilm as the solution and imagined a device he called the Memex to store books, articles, records, and pictures inside a desk. The Memex also allowed the user to establish thematic connections among these works, according to the associations normally made by the human mind. He even imagined a new professional group of people who would forge these trails of association through massive bodies of information.
Although articles about the delights of the future have been common throughout the twentieth century, "As We May Think" is different. This isn't a story about household laborsaving devices or futuristic transportation or robots. This is a story about information and how new technology can help us successfully deal with it.
Through the six and a half decades since the first relay calculators were built, computers have become smaller, faster, and cheaper all at the same time. This trend has changed the very nature of computing. As computers get cheaper, each person can have his or her own. As computers get smaller and faster, software can become more sophisticated and the machines can assume more and more work.
One way in which this extra power and speed can be put to good use is in improving the most crucial part of the computer system, which is the user interface—the point at which human and computer meet. People and computers are very different animals, and unfortunately it's easier to persuade people to make adjustments to accommodate the peculiarities of computers than the other way around.
In the early days, digital computers weren't interactive at all. Some of them were programmed using switches and cables, while others used punched paper tape or film. By the 1950s and 1960s (and even continuing into the 1970s), computers had evolved to the point where batch processing was the norm: Programs and data were punched on cards, which were then read into computer memory. The program analyzed the data, drew some conclusions,