[Sussex] NOW: So, who are the all-time greats? WAS Hello all

[Steve Dobson]

Hi all

I'm back.  A last minute skiing holiday and then a bad case of flu as kept
me off the computers for a while.  Nice to see a long thread running.

[Note to self: Don't change the system setup when I'm not feeling well.
Don't know how much e-mail I lost.]

On Tue, Feb 11, 2003 at 09:56:39PM -0000, Mark Harrison wrote:
> Much as it's always fun to spar with Nik, I was wondering who the "all-time
> greats" actually are. I would suggest, for you, the following.
> 
> Given that I'm "a bit older" than many on the list, it would be interesting
> to see how many names the younger SLUGgers (SLUGgettes?) recognise my list.
> And to see what alternative names are generated.
> 
> The criteria are:
> 
> - Most long-term influence on the course of IT
> - Open publication of what they discovered / invented
> 
> My top bunch, in roughly chronological order are as follows.
> 
> - Alan Turing
> - Joseph Van Neumman
> - Dennis Ritchie
> - Ken Thompson
> - Don Knuth
> - Tony Hoare
> - Edsger Dijkstra
> - Mitch Kapor
> - John Perry Barlow
> - Richard Stallman
> - Linus Torvalds
> - Larry Lessig

What about Jim Getts?

He ways part of the X-Consortium and also worked on the HTTP 1.1 spec.

The X-protocol is still going strong and most of us on Unix-like systems
use it every day.

Also I think that the HTTP protocol has had a minor effect on the way
the world works :-)  When was the last time you saw an advert (TV, newspaper
or billboard) that didn't have a URL in it?

Steve