From aurelio.pollicini@cen.jrc.it Wed Jul 6 13:06:17 1994 Received: from cen.jrc.it (dicscs1.jrc.it) by dkuug.dk with SMTP id AA26444 (5.65c8/IDA-1.4.4j for ); Wed, 6 Jul 1994 11:06:29 +0200 Received: from cen.jrc.it (relay.jrc.it) by cen.jrc.it (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA22024; Wed, 6 Jul 94 11:04:50 +0200 Received: from sad.isei.jrc.it (uranus) by cen.jrc.it; Wed, 6 Jul 94 11:05:41 +0200 From: Aurelio Pollicini Date: Wed, 6 Jul 94 11:06:17 +0200 Message-Id: <29598.9407060906@sad.isei.jrc.it> To: SC22WG5@dkuug.dk Subject: For WG5 Interest X-Charset: ASCII X-Char-Esc: 29 I've just received the proceedings of a workshop held in April (subj: "Software 2000: a View of the Future"), and I'm sending to the attendance of the Edinburgh meeting what seems to me 'a Message to WG5' (quotations below are from a position paper presented by Prof. Brian Randell) "... the most important events in the history of software since invention of the stored program concept were the development of (i) FORTRAN. and (ii) the microcomputer! (The former established the recognition that it was practicable to program at a level which was significantly more abstract than the machine code level; the latter caused what was in effect a huge programmer and user population explosion. ...)" A recognized tradition WG5 is commended to honour! Also in the same paper: "The past ... is also - especially in the case of software - an increasing source of impediments to change, if not to progress." Wise opinion to constantly bear in mind! Regards, Aurelio