The Automatic Computer and You: A Meditation Upon The History And Future Of Software Development

9:15am - 10:00am on Saturday, October 6 in PennTop South

Glyph

Watch:

https://youtu.be/4KgWFQp9Gpo

Description

As members of the Python community, we all believe that computers have the potential to do great things.

But are the things we’re doing with computers, overall, actually great? What is the purpose of computers? Why do we build software for them? How can we do it better? And: should we be making anything other than video games?

In this talk, Glyph will answer those questions, and more; some of his proposed answers might surprise you. He will present extensive digressions on the history of the craft and industry of software development, the impact that recent events have had on the course of that history, and he will contemplate new directions which might lead toward a brighter tomorrow. Along the way, he will consider what lessons we might learn from the progression of other, similar fields, such as medieval church architecture and nuclear power generation.