[ALUG] A week full with birthdays.

[Andreas Tauscher]

Amazing which projects having birthday this week.
Staring with the youngsters:

20 years: JavaScript.
I guess it is one of the most hated and one of the most loved
programming languages. This might be a result out of the naming.
JavaScript has no relation to Java, the code looks somehow like C, a
scripting language it is also not. In truth it is diverted from Scheme,
a Lisp dialect. This legacy might also making it hated. There are no
strict rules or structures in Lisp how to do something. The programmer
has the freedom to do it like he thinks it is best.
Hated or not: JavaScript became the foundation for many web services.
Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript about it's popularity with some
links to history of JavaScript in his blog:
https://brendaneich.com/2008/04/popularity

Also 20 years: Qt
Qt is the foundation for the KDE desktop, and if somebody is programming
cross platform applications in C++: There is now way around Qt. There is
nearly no OS Qt is not available for.
It started already 1992, but 26. May 1995 Lars Wirzenius sent a posting
to the comp.os.linux.announce news group with the subject: "Beta of
Motif-like C++ library available"
http://www.informatica.co.cr/linux-desktops/research/1995/0526.html
iPhone users love all this fancy animations in icons and everywhere but
Qt couldn't handle such things proper so Qt 4.7 introduced QML (Qt
Markup Language) and QML is: JavaScript.

And another 20th anniversary: Java
23. May 1995: Sun Microsystems and Netscape official presented Java.
Working on Java Sun started already in 1991 as part of a research
project at Sun for Set-Top-Boxes. Oak (Object Application Kernel) became
then later Java.
Hard times had Java in 2006 when the permanent rumours about Sun to be
acquired by another company what paralysed the developer team. And when
then Oracle acquired Sun: Most of the developers left Oracle. The
culture of this two companies could not be more different. Like when
Compaq took over Digital Equipment. Entire DEC departments resigned
collectively.
New developers, a new master plan and now the development is moving on
again.

25 years:
22. May 1990: Windows 3.0
Microsoft spent 2,5 million $ on the presentation show.
First it was seen only as a OS/2 competitor. Or something nobody really
knowing what Microsoft wants with this system. The official announcement
together with IBM was: OS/2, OS/2, OS/2!
Still based on DOS, throwing a useless error message when started from
another DOS than MS-DOS but it was the foundation for the later success.
They found a way to break the 640k barrier and got multitasking working.
With the hard disks becoming standard equipment in PCs there was now
also a way open to provide computers with a pre-installed OS. Zenith
Data was the first supplier doing this.
The design of this Windows systems still depending on DOS (up to Win ME)
describes this picture best:
http://3.f.ix.de/imgs/18/1/4/9/9/0/2/6/pic01-ff4bdcff1d0220f7.jpeg ;)
What also came with Windows 3.0: Solitaire. Unknown how much time people
spent in office playing Solitaire instead working.
Microsoft is celebrating this working time destructor with a tournament:
http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindows/2015/05/18/celebrating-microsoft-solitaire/

35 years: Pac Man!
The first Video game shooting star.
In 1980 the most arcade games where space shooters. With Pac Man came
something completely different. A simple, but really exciting game
concept. I have no idea how much of my weekly allowance my parents gave
me I have thrown into a bloody Pac Man box. Sure plenty of it to be
chased by four ghosts....
When Namco placed the first games in Tokyo Pac Man was named Puck Man.
Midway later distributing the arcade consoles in the US feared some
jokers might change the P into an F and so out of the possible Fuck Man
became Pac Man.
With 300000 installed arcade cabinets Pac Man became the most successful
arcade game. There was really no arcade hall in the world without at
least one Pac Man.
Toru Iwatani about his creation on the Game Developers Conference
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014631/Classic-Game-Postmortem-PAC
Being chased in a labyrinth by monsters inspired other games like for
example Doom.
You can play 50 Pac Man clones in the browser at
http://www.onlinespiele-sammlung.de/pacman/list-of-pacman-games.php
and the Google Doodle for the 30th anniversary is also still online:
http://www.google.com/doodles/30th-anniversary-of-pac-man

Andreas

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