Talk:List of pioneers in computer science

Early Posts

Much thanks to Dzonatas. This section needed to be broken out from the main Computer Science topic. --Somewherepurple

I instituted a merge, but I'm not familiar enough with these people: J.C.R. Licklider, Jay Forrester, Norbert Wiener, Vannevar Bush to add them into the table correctly. I hope someone gets to that sometime. Radagast83 05:53, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

• Ken Thompson! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.145.27.163 (talk) 19:40, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

• Here's a link explaining their significance in computing science:

http://www.ibiblio.org/pioneers/

Cheers! -Shadowfax0 (talk) 02:03, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I think Ivan Sutherland should be added (Known for Sketchpad, considered by many to be the creator of Computer Graphics) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Sutherland —Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.67.87.133 (talk) 04:02, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Link to Computer History Museum

I think an external link to the CHM is germane. It's a non-profit 501(c)(3) org, covering the subject of this Wikipedia article. Board of Trustees looks reputable. Any opinions that say the CHM should not be linked in? -- Iterator12n ^Talk 22:57, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

The issue was not whether or not it should be linked in, the appropriateness of the link content itself was not the issue. As stated in the edit summary, the issue was it was added by a CHM staff member who over the past four or so months was spamming links to their own site across wikipedia pages. In fact, that account's only contributions were adding links to his own site across Wikipedia. That is violation of WP:EL and WP:COI. That is why all of that person's edits were reverted, as is routinely done for such violations. And looking further at this article, following Wikipedia's EL policy, truthfully those other links in the EL should be moved to supporting references in the list as well. I.E. content from those sites being used as references, if those sites truly contain material beneficial material for the article. This article contains zero references at the moment.--Marty Goldberg (talk) 23:04, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Will respond later, GTG. -- Iterator12n ^Talk 03:31, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Back. My first reaction is, So what if a good link is added for the wrong reason, it still is a good link. However, my second reaction is, You're right regarding the lack of references - particulalry, by what authority are these people listed as of pioneers? Without references, the list constitutes a work of original research, violating WP:OR. Conclusion: The article should be improved by providing for each entry a pointer to the authority that judges the particular person to be a pioneer. In that way, the CHM may come back as one of the authorities in the subject matter. With a little bit of time later (and if nobody else before me does the job) I'll go through the list and provide for each entry the source(s) that justify the entry. Will delete any entries without a recognized authority behind it. -- Iterator12n ^Talk 02:09, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Order of entries

What a good system to be able to click on a button to re-order the entries in the table.--TedColes (talk) 11:48, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Names for consideration

Names I would like to suggest to discuss for inclusion in 'computer pioneers'.

Charles Babbage originated the concept of a digital programmable computer, the analytical engine in 1837.

Ada Lovelace regarded as the first to recognise the full potential of Charles Babbage's analytical engine and the first computer programmer for the work done crating the first program intended to execute on the analytical engine.

Jay W. Forrester coincident-current magnetic core memory, project leader of Whirlwind

Freddie Williams and Tom Kilburn "Williams tube" memory

Dudley Allen Buck inventor of cryotron, content addressable memory, Ferroelectric ram (see my talk page re: my interest in this subject)

Marcian Hoff Intel 4004

Ken Olsen co-founder Digital Equipment Corp., key person in development of TX-0 computer

James Reid Anderson - co-inventor of the acoustic coupler; founder of Information Terminals, which would be renamed Verbatim disk drive manufacturer;

If anyone knows who to credit for development / perfection of magnetic-drum memory and/or magnetic tape memory, that name might be appropriate for inclusion on this page.

Eccles and Jordan for the Eccles-Jordan flip-flop.

Harry Huskey Standards Western Automatic Computer

AlanDewey (talk) 16:20, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

What about Edward Feigenbaum ?! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 3omarz (talk • contribs) 17:50, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

This article is biased towards mathematics, algorithms applied in software and the computing machines that run them. But core hardware component inventions and advancements are arguably as necessary to advancements in computer science. Please consider contributors such as William Shockley (Semiconductors), Robert Noyce (et al Phd's) @ Fairchild (IC) & with Ted Hoff (Microprocessor), & with Gordon Moore (Memory), and whomever is responsible for flash memory. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.198.107.11 (talk) 17:11, 29 October 2017‎ (UTC)

71.198.107.11, fair point. I'm open to this. Zazpot (talk) 20:27, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Changes to Boole and Minski

Marvin Minski was born in 1927, not much of an achievement. I changed Minski's date to the founding of the AI Lab/Project MAC, which is what the table mentions. Likewise, George Boole was fifteen years old in 1830. I changed the date to the publication dates of his works on logic. 75.15.115.245 (talk) 17:33, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Gates

Shouldn't Bill Gates be on this list?74.178.186.35 (talk) 02:08, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Gates is not a pioneer in Computer Science. Though he is a significant figure in the development of computers for the public (I don't know what Wikipedia list, if any, there is for that). Pioneers in Computer Science has to be early on, 1960 or even earlier. Lentower (talk) 04:09, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Oh,well to me he is,so.74.178.186.35 (talk) 15:11, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I came to this talk page expecting someone to argue for Gates, Wozniak, or Jobs... or even Torvalds. Sure enough... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.7.50.250 (talk) 15:49, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Bryan Cantrill (Dtrace)

I'm not sure that Bryan Cantrill should be on this list; I don't believe that DTrace is as notable/important to computer science as the rest of the achievements listed. I'm removing him from the list. Blelbach (talk) 05:06, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

al-Khwārizmī a computer scientist?

I don't think that al-Khwārizmī qualifies as a pioneer in computer science. Computer science relies on a number of earlier developments and isn't alone in using algorithms. --TedColes (talk) 10:49, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

I think al-Khwārizmī has an indirect influence on computer science for his concept of the algorithm. I'm not saying that he made big contributions, however, algorithms are still important in computer science for solving problems. Also his introduction to the Hindu-Arabic numeral system (developed by Indian mathematicians), which introduces "0" and "1" to the western world has made a significant influence. You may refute against the second point, however, I think as long as we have a reliable source, that should suffice (which it has). Ninmacer20 (talk) 15:58, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

General Computational Limitations and Parallel Programing

I suggest adding the following people to the list:

Gordon E. Moore developed Moore's Law which empirically showed the increasing speed of computation technology (1965)

Rolf Landauer derived Landauer's principle, giving the thermodynamic limitations of computing systems (1961)

Gene Amdahl developed parallel scaling and Amdahl's law which shows the practical limits of parallelizing a given problem (1967)

John L. Gustafson developed weak scaling and Gustafson's law which helped to precipitate the parallel supercomputing revolution (1988)

— Rememberlands (talk) 18:18, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Sorting of the table

Isn't is a pity that the inventor of the first working general programmable computer (Konrad Zuse) is last in the table?

I would like to see the table by default sorted in timeline order. Schily (talk) 12:44, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Hi Schily, I have a few thoughts on this:

1. On the practical side, maintaining the list will be a harder if it is sorted chronologically. There is always the ambiguity of when to have the pioneer placed; his birth, death, most famous work, first work of note, etc.? This criterion must be well defined and consistently applied.
2. Similarly, sorting by last name cannot be done directly in these lists. If we change to default sort by date, we cannot get the information on how the list sorts out by last names; it is explicitly a loss of information to sort by time, since at best we could only get it to re-sort by first name.
3. On the side of consistency with the rest of wikipedia, most lists are sorted alphabetically.
4. Tables look perhaps the cleanest if the left-most column is already sorted.
5. Finally, there is already an excellent Timeline of computing, so this page does not need to duplicate that material. I will add a link to that in the see also section.

—Rememberlands (talk) 04:55, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I concur with User:Rememberlands. The table is sortable. Chose your poison. Juan Riley (talk) 00:30, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

I also agree with Rememberlands, for the reasons outlined above. Ry's the Guy ^{(talk|contribs)} 09:48, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Problems in al-Khwārizmī Section

It currently reads

The term "algorithm" is derived from the algorism, the technique of performing arithmetic with Hindu-Arabic numerals developed by al-Khwarizmi. Both "algorithm" and "algorism" are derived from the Latinized forms of al-Khwarizmi's name, Algoritmi and Algorismi, respectively. His Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing (Arabic: الكتاب المختصر في حساب الجبر والمقابلة‎‎ al-Kitāb al-mukhtaṣar fī ḥisāb al-jabr wal-muqābala) is a mathematical book written approximately 830 CE. The word Algebra is also derived from the title of his book and it is believed to be the first book on the subject. The notion of zero is found for the first time in this book. However, it is believed he had learned the notion of zero from Indians through his travels to India. With zero, he was able to invent the systematic Indo-Arabic number (decimal) system. The word algorithm was given in Europe to a method he called "Attarigolkharazmi" (Akharazmi's Method) for taking square root of whole numbers in decimal system. The method is based on first identity ((a+b)^2 = a^2 + b^2, where a= 10^n, n>1). The word "method" was dropped in time and the word algorithm referred to this method of taking square root. As more elaborate ways of doing complex things, in a mechanized way, through mathematical reasoning were discovered/invented, they were all called algorithms. Certain algorithms, such as deriving the greatest common divisor existed way before Alkharazmi (Greek time). However, Europeans were so impressed by Kharazmi's method that his name replaced the world "method".

I addition to being inordinately long, I think it has some errors. That "identity" is false, as a=100, b=2 gives (100+2)^2 = (102)^2 = 1040 while 100^2 + 2^2 = 1004. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.236.221.138 (talk) 14:55, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Sheryl Sandberg?

Sure she is accomplished but she is NOT a pioneer in computer science. 152.131.14.9 (talk) 14:56, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

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The first X to achieve Y is not noteworthy

I've noticed that one user has added significant changes (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_pioneers_in_computer_science&type=revision&diff=803332873&oldid=799334223) for a lot of achievements that aren't noteworthy in my opinion. Most of them read in the form, the "The first X to do Y", where Y is something that a lot of people have achieved before. A common example is "The first female engineer to do ...". While those achievements are important in their own right, I don't think that makes them pioneers in computer science in general, although some of those in that list might be.

An example of an entry which I think shouldn't be here: "Named third (and first female) Chief Technology Officer of the United States of America (USCTO), succeeding Todd Park."

Just to be clear, I have nothing against entries with women such as Ada Lovelace, as most people that have studied computer science are likely to have heard about.

TLDR: Undo those changes? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gajop (talk • contribs) 05:38, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

@Gajop: all of the people added seem to either be blue-linked or to be women in red, which suggests that they are notable. Being among the first women to achieve something substantial, in a male-dominated field, indicates a pioneer. If that field is computer science, then the person belongs in the list. Ergo, keep. Zazpot (talk) 13:02, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Should be very selective here, as this is not a male/female list or a 'male dominated field' list, but a computer pioneer list. For example, the entry mentioned above, "Named third (and first female) Chief Technology Officer of the United States of America (USCTO), succeeding Todd Park" seems to me way too tangential for this list and anything like that should be removed. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:22, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Indeed, this should be a list of people who had extraordinary contributions to computer science, and should not contain any biases towards race, gender, religion, etc. Basically just a list of people that left a lot of influence and shaped computer science as we know it today. For more specific lists which display list of female achievements, we have this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_computing Gajop (talk) 13:40, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Here's a refinement of my comment above: the entry should be kept if the person concerned features in any of the lists below, in conjunction with computing work, or in any other relevant list of computer science pioneers published in WP:RS:

• Gürer, Denise (June 2002). "Pioneering Women In Computer Science" (PDF). SIGCSE Bulletin. 34 (2): 175–183.
• "Pioneering Women in Computing Technology". The Ada Project, Carnegie Mellon University.
• Sparkes, Matthew (14 October 2014). "The female pioneers of the technological age". The Telegraph.
• Alderman, Naomi (13 October 2014). "Women in computing: the 60s pioneers who lit up the world of coding". The Guardian.
• Parkinson, Hannah Jane (13 October 2015). "On Ada Lovelace Day, here are seven other pioneering women in tech".

Zazpot (talk) 15:49, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Some of those lists (especially https://www.women.cs.cmu.edu/ada/Resources/Women/) are large, and almost all of them exclusively mention women. If you want such lists, again, I suggest this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_computing . This list should be selective and all people in the list should be judged equally. I think at this point we're clearly at a disagreement. How are disputes like this resolved on wikipedia? Gajop (talk) 16:30, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

@Gajop: well, first of all, there is WP:NOHURRY :) I have already invited some editors with relevant experience to comment here; perhaps they will. If not, then there are various options; see WP:DR. I would suggest leaving things for at least a day or two, to see if other editors chime in and broad consensus can be achieved. If that fails, then you can always invoke one of the options under WP:CONTENTDISPUTE, if you wish. WP:RFC might be the most appropriate one here, as clearly the list contains notable entries that should appear in Wikipedia; we're just at odds about where and how to best achieve that. At its best, an RfC might come up with a great solution that neither of us have thought of, and that satisfies both of us :) (Though at worst, it might invite suggestions or actions that satisfy neither of us; it's always a gamble. Hence my suggestion to wait a few days in the first instance.) Zazpot (talk) 16:42, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

I agree that being "the first woman to do X" doesn't really constitute a pioneer in computer science--although they could be a pioneer in breaking gender barriers--as the recognition should go to the first person or group who made the breakthrough regardless of gender/race/orientation. The current list does include women who made pioneering contributions, such as Turing Awardees Barbara Liskov, Shafi Goldwasser, and Frances Allen, and I've added more as I've found them. Entries for "first woman to do X" are indeed better suited for the Women in computing page. --Blueclaw (talk) 17:11, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

These are my thoughts as well. Would it be better if we linked to the Women in computing page from here? It's related and technically also a list. Gajop (talk) 04:25, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

That's a great idea-- people can still get that information without diluting this list with entries that don't actually fit the page description. I've just added it to the "See also" section. Should we go ahead remove the "first woman to do X" entries and add them to the Women in computing page? --Blueclaw (talk) 02:59, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

@Blueclaw: being the first woman to achieve a specific thing can indeed be notable, especially in fields where women were actively prevented from making achievements. Such an achievement is arguably doubly pioneering: not only overcoming the difficulties of the field, but also the active opposition of one's peers. So, no, neither you nor anyone else should remove such entries. Zazpot (talk) 21:42, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

@Zazpot:I'm not arguing that these women aren't pioneers, just that their contributions break social barriers rather than research ground. The Women in computing page exists as a showcase for these types of contributions. I support removing these entries from this list because they're not primarily research contributions, which is what this page appears to be about and what our readers are likely interested in when they visit this page.--Blueclaw (talk) 23:17, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

@Blueclaw: I understand your desire to keep the list on topic. Moreover, I appreciate what your argument is. But in some cases, that argument fails because the person concerned did break research ground (e.g. Karen Spärck Jones with IDF), and in some others it fails because the person "helped in the creation, development and imagining of what computers and electronics could do", in a way that was both notable and novel (e.g. Susan Kare). So, rather than advocating wholesale removal/reversion, it would seem to be more appropriate to assess each entry on its merits, and to consider whether the person concerned has been credited in any WP:RS as a pioneer in suitable regards. Zazpot (talk) 01:34, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

According to her Wikipedia entry, Susan Kare is "an artist and graphic designer" who worked for Apple drawing icons and interface elements for a commercial operating system inspired by the Xerox Alto. I'll just point out that if we include Kare, we also need to include her employer(s), i.e. Jobs, Wozniak and that other guy. And no, I do not want to see Steve Jobs listed as a pioneer in computer science, please. MrFlowerpot (talk) 21:04, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Meet criterium?

I'm not sure if several recent additions meet the criterium at the top of the article. "This article presents a list of individuals who helped in the creation, development and imagining of what computers and electronics could do." For instance, does this apply to all six original programmers of the ENIAC? For instance, none of them have an entry in Milestones in Computer Science and Information Technology by Edward Reilly. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 18:02, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Citing a source (Reilly) that may be biased is not necessarily conclusive:

Exciting inventions, innovative technology, human interaction, and intriguing politics fill computing history. However, the recorded history is mainly composed of male achievements and involvements, even though women have played substantial roles. This situation is not unusual. Most science fields are notorious for excluding, undervaluing, or overlooking the accomplishments of their female scientists [1, 16, 17, 22]. As J.A.N. Lee points out, it is up to the historians and others to remedy this imbalance...

— Denise Gürer

HTH, Zazpot (talk) 21:37, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

What makes you think that Rielly's book is biased against women? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 00:14, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

None of the six ENIAC programmers have entries in the much larger Encyclopedia of Computer Science by Ralston and Reilly either. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 00:24, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Bubba73, I don't claim that Reilly is biased, just that Reilly may be biased. This is a field in which the histories have, historically, been biased against women (see quote above), and it would be surprising if Reilly substantially bucked that trend. Zazpot (talk) 01:13, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

I am confused by what I'm reading. Isn't it self-evident that to be a pioneer in science you need to be a scientist? Do we need to let programmers (of any sort, really) in just to have some women on the list? How about we instead pick from the ranks of the many, many female scientists who published seminal papers? Or are we ourselves biased to the point that we implicitly admit that women's contributions to the field are essentially janitorial work and don't even make an effort to round up a list of actual scientists? I surely hope not. MrFlowerpot (talk) 21:28, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

95.237.245.9, I have a fair degree of sympathy for your concerns. I, like you, don't want a list that looks patronising, or that overvalues achievements. The difficulty is, we don't have a universally-agreed, unambiguously-defined criterion that specifies who should, and who should not, be on the list. I don't think we will arrive at one any time soon, either: it's not a simple problem to formalise. In lieu of that, WP:LISTN seems the appropriate touchstone.

On a different note, you asked, "Isn't it self-evident that to be a pioneer in science you need to be a scientist?"

For critical perspectives of what lay expertise means, what science is, what scientists are, and what represents progress let alone pioneering progress, you might want to spend some time with works like:

• Gregory, Jane; Miller, Steve (2000). Science in Public. Perseus. ISBN 0738203572.
• Fleck, Ludwik (1981). Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226253252., and
• Against Method.

P.S. If I cease replying here, it's probably just because I'm busy elsewhere, and should not be taken to mean I have shifted my position on the topics I've discussed on this talk page. If I ever do shift on that, I will aim to update the relevant threads.

Regards, Zazpot (talk) 16:35, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for the pointers, #2 seems like a particularly good read on its own merit, but I don't think a discussion on the philosophy of science is in order here.

You say: "the difficulty is, we don't have a universally-agreed, unambiguously-defined criterion that specifies who should, and who should not, be on the list. I don't think we will arrive at one any time soon, either: it's not a simple problem to formalise."

And on that premise I could bring myself to very reluctantly agree (reluctance coming from the fact that bibliometrics for recent works appearing in CS journals and mentions in CS textbooks for earlier work dating back to Hilbert's time should suffice in giving a universally-agreed criterion of who should not be on the list - which is, those names with zero total occurrences).

On the other hand, I don't think we need such a particularly precise instrument to kick out of the list a random employee in the software industry and bring in eminent scientists like Cousot or Li.

Clearly the former don't belong (nor do their bosses, let's keep it that way), the latter belong to the list.

As a side note, if you are including Apple employee #12345 you need to include half of the top brass at Apple, including Mr Jobs, Mr. Ive and Mr. Gates, which is clearly absurd: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_pioneers_in_computer_science#Gates

What really irks me to no end is that we wouldn't be having this silly talk right now if those names didn't get in in the first place. Which equates to: if at some point, somebody with clearly absolutely no background in computer science and a very confused mind didn't think it was a sublime idea to add the names of some ladies who may have appeared on wired.com (or worse).

Who loses: 1. Wikipedia 2. Computer science 3. Women 4. My stomach

Who gains something: ??? MrFlowerpot (talk) 21:28, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

References

List of pioneers in computer science or list of successful women in computer science?

I am under the impression that in the last few years somebody added a long string of names, largely irrelevant to computer science, which hold the sole distinction of being female: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_pioneers_in_computer_science&type=revision&diff=805664510&oldid=390493835

Consider for example Marissa Mayer, who "was the first female engineer hired at Google", or Maria Klawe who "was the first woman to become President of the Harvey Mudd College since its founding in 1955", or Megan Smith, "named third USCTO [...] succeeding Todd Park".

They might be scientists, I have my doubts they are distinguished scientists and I am fairly certain they are not pioneers of computer science.

I recommend reverting these changes, as they can only damage the credibility of women in science.

Start, instead, with real pioneers in computer science, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radhia_Cousot, who single-handedly invented abstract interpretation together with Patrick Cousot (over 6000 citations for https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=512973), or Hanne Riis Nielson (https://scholar.google.it/citations?user=5U0XVHUAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao), or Mariangiola Dezani-Ciancaglini (a student of Corrado Bohem), or ...

Thanks MrFlowerpot (talk) 21:04, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

• I agree. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 01:44, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Please see our above discussion under "The first X to achieve Y is not noteworthy". Yes I think we should revert (Ada Lovelace could stay though) and I think we have a consensus now. Gajop (talk) 04:00, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Grace Hopper should certainly stay too. Margaret Hamilton - maybe. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 23:20, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Hi, I'm original poster, sorry for not noticing a discussion already underway. I /think/ Margaret Hamilton ought to stay if and only if she has impacted computer science through a seminal paper or something of that sort, which does not seem to be the case to me. For that matter, I don't think Shiraz Shivji or Tadashi Sasaki belong here either. For the "something of that sort" category I'd also like to nominate for inclusion in this list Per Martin-Lof (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per_Martin-L%C3%B6f), who founded Intuitionistic Type Theory but whose work circulates mostly through collected lecture notes and talks. And while I'm at it, also Vladimir Vapnik (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Vapnik).

Tadashi Sasaki not notable? The guy who pushed Busicom into developing a general purpose processor, rather than an adding machine-specific chip, thus kicking off the whole microprocessor concept?

As to the rest, I know what a bigoted, misogynistic pit WP has always been, but seriously? "delete these women because they damage the credibility of women in science."!? Andy Dingley (talk) 12:46, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Dear Andy, it's OP again. It seems to me that including women that have nothing whatsoever to do with Computer Science, and are very much definitely not pioneers of the field in lieu of.... actual pioneers (like, again, Cousot, Dezani-Ciancaglini, et cetera) is indeed damaging to the credibility of women, which are made to look like second class citizens at best. Mysogyny? Mysogyny schmysogyny. Mysogyny is omitting Cousot (for Marissa Meyer)! Creating a "special olympics of science for women" would be the real mysogynistic thing to do, especially when there is plenty of women who dominate the... actual olympics. As for Sasaki, I think he probably belongs to a list of electric engineers (from the CS point of view the organization of computers is much less relevant than their architecture, as defined in Stallings). MrFlowerpot (talk) 21:29, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Oh, one more real female pioneer: Li Fei-Fei, researcher in computer vision and Full Professor at Stanford! https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=rDfyQnIAAAAJ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fei-Fei_Li

And Toby Bloom, who, despite the ambiguous-sounding first name, is a woman: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=zXmV9GQAAAAJ&hl=en She's especially famous for this: https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=806566 MrFlowerpot (talk) 21:03, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

RFC: Criteria for inclusion in this list

The editors of this page are not entirely in agreement about which people are eligible for inclusion in the list, and request community input. In particular, does achievement in the field that is notable partly or primarily due to the overcoming of social barriers present within the field, constitute grounds for inclusion in the list? Zazpot (talk) 13:21, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

• Yes. I stand by my comments in the sections above. Zazpot (talk) 13:06, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

• No. Race, sex, or any other social characteristic has little bearing on the individual's contribution to computer science. Inclusion should be based on pioneering work in the field itself not by a subjective criteria such as "first X who is also Y who did Z".Icewhiz (talk) 13:33, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Icewhiz, you say, "Race, sex, or any other social characteristic has little bearing on the individual's contribution to computer science", but historically that is false. Many people have been excluded (and still are all too often excluded) from participation in computer science due to "race, sex, or other social characteristics". As such, making a notable career within the field despite that discrimination, and especially being the first or among the first to do so, is pioneering within the field. Zazpot (talk) 14:07, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Ada Lovelace managed just fine to be the first, period. Being the first X (or X and Y, or (yes, these sometimes prop up to) the first X+Y+Z) to achieve something? That should go in X's article (or if we have a X+Y or X+Y+Z article - there). Or Xism. Or a list devoted to the "first X who broke through...". Such social constructs, which tend to evolve quite a bit and are far from objective, have little bearing on actual contribution to computer science.Icewhiz (talk) 14:11, 25 October 2017 (UTC) Regarding your claim that "Race, sex, or any other social characteristic has little bearing on the individual's contribution to computer science" is false - you are claiming that some people were excluded from contributing for a variety of reasons. Perhaps. There are many possible reasons for a NULL contribution - however this has little bearing on those people whose contribution was non-trivial.Icewhiz (talk) 14:30, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Icewhiz, what amounts to an "actual [or non-trivial] contribution to computer science" is also subjective (hence the discussion that we are having). To argue otherwise is to make a logically unsound argument, due to the false premise.

As for your last use of the phrase "little bearing": there can be no doubt that making an early, notable career in the field, in the face of overwhelming systematic exclusion, is pioneering. The discussion we are having bears solely on whether it is pioneering enough to justify inclusion in this list. No-one has yet advanced a sound argument as to why it should not. Zazpot (talk) 14:41, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Surely deciding what contribution to a scientific field is pioneering is subjective. However we should leave the subjectivity to the evaluation of the contribution and not add an additional subjective social adversity/firstness criteria on top of the evaluation of the contributions themselves. Being the "alleged first social X to do Y in computer science" may be pioneering for X, it is not pioneering in Computer Science.Icewhiz (talk) 14:41, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Icewhiz, your argument, like Gajop's, assumes the existence of a pristine, bias-free means to cleanly separate those concerns: an unassailable demarcation criterion. But such a thing does not exist. As such, your argument is logically unsound, due to the false premise. Zazpot (talk) 14:48, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

There is a pristine and bias free enough means to separate those concerns: limit yourself to the scientific accomplishments of a given individual. If there are none, the individual blatantly does not belong in here. If there are some, it is possible to evaluate them and see if they're on par with the rest of the list. To some degree, subjectively, which is how you can get in your favourite yet somewhat obscure computer scientist who did a brilliant overlooked paper on recurrent neural nets. I sincerely believe that calling for any further level of sophistication at this stage amounts to either intentional trolling or original research. MrFlowerpot (talk) 21:27, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

MrFlowerpot, it is not up to us as Wikipedia editors to propound our own theories of what is and is not scientific, nor who was or was not a pioneer, nor the limits of any given discipline. (For us to do so would indeed likely be original research.)

If multiple WP:RS claim a person was a "pioneer" (or "trailblazer" or equivalent) in computing or computer science, then that person merits inclusion in this list, it is that simple. (There might be other valid reasons for inclusion, but I am not currently aware of any.) Zazpot (talk) 21:12, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

At the risk of sounding harsh, pioneering accomplishments aren't measured based on what (social/life) difficulty one had to achieve them. Some people have better starting conditions and they are more likely to produce greater achievements. This list shows people based on the achievements themselves, and not how many social struggles they had to do them. Other lists are better for that, although I am sure it is very difficult to determine how much hardship someone had in their life/career. Gajop (talk) 14:18, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Gajop, how accomplishments are measured depends entirely upon who is doing the measuring and which yardsticks they are using. The idea that there is a pristine, completely unbiased standard for measuring achievement, is simply a fallacy. Frankly, it is unlikely that any large group of computer scientists would every entirely agree on precisely what computer science is, let alone how to measure the value of any given individual's contribution, but that is a whole other problem. Zazpot (talk) 14:33, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Those are personal accomplishments, not necessarily pioneering accomplishments in C.S. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 17:39, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Bubba73, which are the "those" that you are referring to? Zazpot (talk) 18:06, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

the ones you are talking about above. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 18:24, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Bubba73, any person's accomplishment, of any kind, is, in a sense, a personal accomplishment. It seems to me to be both correspondingly fruitless, and off-topic, to discuss whether or not any of the accomplishments of the people on the list are "personal accomplishments". Let's keep on topic, please. Thanks :) Zazpot (talk) 19:24, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

• No, as discussed before. Maybe there could be a separate article for that - if you have good references for that - but this article is about what the first sentence says. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 13:40, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

• No, as discussed before. The criteria for including people in this list should be the same regardless of gender, race, nationality, etc. That said, we should link to other lists that present people which have broken some social barrier. Gajop (talk) 13:49, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

• Irrelevant. I believe the problem is in the amount of entries that are blatantly unrelated to 'computer science', not in the threshold for "pioneering achievement". If *every* poor black blind trans woman who published a paper on any CS journal ever were represented on the list, it would still be preferable to the current situation. Also, No. MrFlowerpot (talk) 21:03, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
• No I think this article should just list research contributions, not social contributions, don't revert all the women who have just been added, assess each based on their research contributions, and link to the list of notable women, ect. Tornado chaser (talk) 12:21, 29 October 2017 (UTC)
• No Overcoming social barriers, perceived or actual, is not a pioneering contribution to computer science or any other field. Meters (talk) 07:02, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

On the un-removal of Evelyn Boyd Granville

User Zazpot has undone my removal of Evelyn Boyd Granville and promised references: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_pioneers_in_computer_science&oldid=807012207

Copious references for the table entry did come in a timely fashion, but the problem is with the copy itself, not with the lack of references:

"Was the second African-American woman in the U.S. to receive a PhD in mathematics.[4][5][6][7] From 1956 to 1960, she worked for IBM on the Project Vanguard and Project Mercury space programs, developing computer software for analyzing orbits, and continued to work in computer programming, applied mathematics, and mathematical education throughout her career."

This reads as "Granville was an applied mathematician/physicist", not a computer scientist.

• Has Granville contributed a single paper in a computer science journal?
• Has she otherwise done any significant work in CS?

"We had a computer in our lab so I was among its 30 users" does not constitute engaging in computer science.

Frankly, this is getting really crazy and I'm doubting of either the sanity of who is contributing to this page or their background in computer science.

As a side note, I believe insistence on an obscure person of African heritage shows a distinctly American-centric view, which seems rather un-NPOV to me (the ongoing oppression of black people in America is a purely American concern).

In fact, if we wanted to really include all possible instantiations of "the first X who did Y", at the very least we would need to add all the Soviet mathematicians and engineers of the era, then, and the Chinese scientists who designed their own computers in the 1960s and 1970s (plenty of interesting folklore: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1658660/), and so on, possibly down to the first telegraph operator in Mozambique.

MrFlowerpot (talk) 21:03, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

95.237.245.9 and/or MrFlowerpot: whether or not Granville's entry reads to you as indicating that she was a pioneer in computing, is essentially irrelevant, given that several of the cited WP:RS claim that she was.

Whether or not you personally view computer science as distinct from mathematics (applied or otherwise), is also essentially irrelevant in relation to Granville, both for the reason above, and because Wikipedia is not a primary source.

None of your other objections seem to me to be on-topic.

Finally, please be WP:CIVIL. It isn't exactly polite to "doubt the sanity" of other editors. Zazpot (talk) 06:44, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Should be removed - no significant contribution to the field.Icewhiz (talk) 07:09, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Icewhiz, your claim reduces to WP:DOESNTBELONG. WP:RS indicate that she was a pioneer in computing. You provide no evidence to the contrary. Zazpot (talk) 15:09, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

None of the sourced provided establish pioneering for computer science. Some do say she was pioneering for being an African-American woman in CS - which is not pioneering in CS.Icewhiz (talk) 15:17, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Icewhiz, I can't say I agree with your assessment of the sources that existed at the time you made your comment above. IMO, some of them make the case that she was a pioneer on two fronts. In any case, I have now provided additional sources, with quotes, that portray Granville as a pioneer in computing, period. Zazpot (talk) 23:36, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

No, they portray Granville as a pioneer in computer usage and/or a part of pioneering efforts in space flight which happened to use computers to carry out astronomical computations and/or a pioneer in civil rights. Period, full stop and exclamation mark.

You'll promptly call me "uncivil" again, to my great merriment, but I can't help but wonder if you can tell the difference between that and publishing in the field of computer science. I honestly can't imagine anybody with postgraduate education in CS - and I know a building full of them - showing the same appreciation for this woman as you do (or even acknowledging her existence).

But of course, I don't want to insist on a technicality such as the exact phrasing of those references. As long as it says "pioneer" somewhere (for comparison, a quick Google search gives me 120K results for steve+jobs+computing+pioneer) it's good enough for me. Let's keep her! Coase famously said that if you torture the data long enough, the experiment will eventually confess, and I don't have any doubts that if you do some more Googling you'll find some post or some blog where the author (with a BSc in Armenian Literature) accidentally uses the exact phrasing, "pioneer in computer science".

What is, unnervingly, still eluding us are what her accomplishments in computer science actually are, as they seemingly can't be found anywhere, much less on the wiki page, but we won't let that stop us, lest we need to actually turn on our brains instead of performing data dredging of the lowest sort.

My sincerest congratulations on getting your entry in - alas, I can't honestly find it in me to congratulate you on making Wikipedia better, because I believe it just got a bit worse, but to each his own? MrFlowerpot (talk) 01:54, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Not even all Turing Award winners are listed. Susan L. Graham received an IEEE John von Neumann Medal, yet she is not listed. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:35, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Bubba73, I don't see how your remark relates to the preceding discussion. However, I also don't see anyone objecting to the inclusion of Graham or any other winner of a major award in the field. Why not just add her to the list, instead of complaining that she isn't on it? Zazpot (talk) 04:10, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

MrFlowerpot, several of your remarks to me seem to overlook Granville's historical context. Her training and applied research occurred from the 1940s through the 1960s. In that period:

• There was much less agreement on, or usage of, the terms "computer scientist" or "computer science".
• Most of today's "computer science" journals or academic departments did not yet exist.
• Much work that would now be considered "computer science" was performed by people who were instead called, or who had at least been trained partly or exclusively as, "mathematicians" or "physicists" or "engineers" or "philosophers" or "logicians". You'll have heard of some of them: Church, Turing, von Neumann, Hoare, Dijkstra, Codd, Cerf, Liskov, Engelbart, Papert, Milner, Wilkes, Wirth, Gödel, Tarski...

There are several reasons why Granville might not have published much, even if we overlook the discriminatory attitudes of the era. For instance: that she did much of her work in an era when there was less incentive to publish than there was later in the century; or that she was working in an area of application where there was less incentive to publish than there would have been in academia, and in which (because of the Space Race) she may well have been under a very comprehensive NDA.

As for whether your CS-trained acquaintances "acknowledge her existence", this is irrelevant. In computing as in many other fields, the set of famous people, though it typically intersects the set of pioneers, is rarely identical to it. Plus, no computer scientist knows everything about computer science and its history: it's too big a field.

So please, stop raising spurious objections, and let this go. Zazpot (talk) 04:10, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

None of the sources provided state she was a pioneer in CS. One is an auto-bio. Several don't have pioneer in them. And the few that do - mention her as a pioneer Woman African American. @Zazpot: - you are acting against consensus of several editors here. No one else is supporting this.Icewhiz (talk) 06:05, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Some mathematics is computer science. Certainly not all mathematics is computer science. If Granville was indeed a pioneer in computer science at the very least the copy needs to be updated listing her achievements, then. "Obtaining a PhD in Mathematics" is not a pioneering achievement in CS. I also perused the references. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Evelyn-Granville does not list her as a "pioneer of computer science", nor does just about any of the other references; moreover, some, such as https://www.computerhope.com/people/evelyn_granville.htm are hardly scholarly.

You are right, my personal opinion does not matter, but neither does yours, and you are probably one of three or four people on the planet who believe that this individual is more relevant than several thousand other scientists who don't appear on the list (for example, I still see a distinct lack of Cousot). I believe you are trying to back this with extraordinarily convoluted reasonings and technicalities (and you ask me to be civil, after coming off as patronizing and borderline trollish on the entire talk page?), while the truth is that just about any practitioner of the field but you would never consider this individual in any way significant to the field.

Very well then, have your entry for all I care. I find that this attitude is most damaging to the people who come here looking for knowledge, not to me. All the best, see you. MrFlowerpot (talk) 08:42, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

MrFlowerpot:

• I'm not using my personal opinion as a basis; I'm using WP:RS. (Some are scholarly, some are journalistic; they are still WP:RS.)
• Accusing me of being "patronizing and borderline trollish" is also not WP:CIVIL. Please desist.
• Your argument about Cousot reduces to WP:OTHERSTUFFDOESNTEXIST.
• Your argument that the entry is "damaging" reduces to WP:HARMFUL.

Zazpot (talk) 15:09, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Dear Zazpot, I don't know what some those acronyms mean. I only know that your references do not list achievements in computer science for the individual in question. I also know that the copy on the Wiki page is not listing any achievements in computer science for the individual in question. In my extreme naivety I would find it appropriate to list them, if the subject is to be on a list of "pioneers in computer science", but you keep ignoring that point, which is... let's say, not secondary to my eyes. It similarly does not seem reasonable to me that an individual without any listed achievement in CS is included and several true pioneers are excluded; someone might catch the faintest smell of sexism in specifically excluding top female scientists (where "top" means 6000 citations since the 70s).

Please don't bother to answer. I know already your answer would be something along the lines of "Yes but that's illogical, because WP:FOOBAR and the definition of computer science is subjective and you are making wild assumptions, please read your Descartes and Juvenal." I'm already on it, I swear.

Since I'll be busy re-reading my Descartes, this will be my last post.

As I said already, you can keep your entry with no achievements listed. I'm not the one who's being hurt. MrFlowerpot (talk) 19:10, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

MrFlowerpot, for the third time, please stop your uncivil remarks. I have not excluded anyone from the list, and it is completely inappropriate to imply that I am being sexist.

The "acronyms" you refer to are not acronyms, they are shortcuts, that link to guidance pages or sections. If you click them, you will be able to see what they refer to. Zazpot (talk) 21:03, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

I promised the above would be my last post, but allow me to make this one my last: I vehemently deny that I'm being uncivil to anyone, I think that is just your opinion; mine is entirely specular. I also did not accuse you personally of being sexist - on the contrary, I suspect that's the last thing you would stain yourself with. However, I still am not seeing any achievement in computer science for Evelyn Boyd Granville being mentioned on the page so allow me to consider any further discussion futile. I sincerely hope that in the future you (second person plural, with only marginal emphasis on the second person singular meaning) will carefully consider the good of the page, of Wikipedia and of the readers and will try to question whether you (second person plural) do have a sufficient background in CS and don't have any unconscious bias or agenda at the time of editing this page. I also hope that you will consider creating a separate page for "influential enterpreneurs in the hardware industry" and one for "notable computer programmers and game designers" (I shouldn't need to suggest this...). Adieu. MrFlowerpot (talk) 22:28, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

References

Relevance of computer game programmers to computer science list

@Zazpot: - I'd love to hear your explanation for the relevant of Janese Swanson, Carla Meninsky, and Roberta Williams to this list. While generating computer game content with a LFSR is a nice trick, use of such generation techniques is not groundbreaking (e.g. the predating Rogue (video game)) - and is definitely not pioneering in computer science. Being a professional in computing tagged a pioneer by someone does not a pioneer in computer science make.Icewhiz (talk) 15:30, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Judgement by peers

I think this article should include people who have made significant pioneering contributions to computer science, by the judgement of their peers. That would include recipients of:

• Turing Award
• IEEE John von Neumann Medal
• Grace Murray Hopper Award

and maybe others, although the Hopper award is a little limited because it considers the age of the person. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 05:02, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Bubba73, on the face of it, your proposal seems perfectly reasonable to me. (To be clear, I don't think the list should be limited to recipients of such awards, but I don't think that is what you are suggesting.) Zazpot (talk)

Given the recent edit warring on the page against consensus - we should probably limit this to a hard criterion such as that Bubba73 is suggesting. We should include early pioneers (Ada Lovelace, Babbage, Turing, etc.) - who pre-dated the awards and for whom there is consensus.Icewhiz (talk) 06:00, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

UNDUE tags

I removed several individuals with little claim for pioneering in CS from the list. I also tagged Karen Spärck Jones, Barbara J. Grosz, Betty Holberton, Jean E. Sammet, and Rosalind Picard as WP:UNDUE. All are notable professionals and academics with some significant contributions and 2nd/3rd tier awards, however it is unclear to me that they meet a pioneering in CS threshold for inclusion here and I would appreciate additional input.Icewhiz (talk) 09:01, 30 October 2017 (UTC)