trivia

This would be funny if it weren’t quite so tragic. A friend of mine has just pointed me to the Computer Weekly “second annual UKtech50” poll of “the definitive list of the real movers and shakers in UK IT – the CIOs, industry executives, public servants and business leaders driving the creation of a high-tech economy.”

The flummery goes on, “Voting has begun to find out who is the most influential person in the UK IT community. Our panel of judges has chosen the shortlist of 50 names, and we want your opinion on who should win.”

So who are these 50 top “movers and shakers” in UK IT? A depressing list of the (maybe) worthy but dull. The sort of list that the President of a local chapter of the BCS might dream up. It even includes the Cabinet Office Minister Frances Maude. I don’t think his CV contains much in the way of technical capability, With one or two exceptions (pick your own) few if any of those listed could be deemed UK IT leaders – influential maybe, IT leaders? I doubt it.

So let’s take a look at the list of judges. This is where the tragedy is most manifest. Take a look at the bottom of that page – the section headed “Read More”. It says:

People who read this also read…

What is 3G (third generation of mobile telephony)? – Definition from Whatis.com
What is TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol)? – Definition from Whatis.com
What is cloud computing? – Definition from Whatis.com
What is supply chain management (SCM)? – Definition from Whatis.com

Oh deary, deary, deary me.

In response to the news of Dennis Ritchie’s death, Ted Harding, a long time member of the anglia linux users group posted an interesting comment to the list this morning. Ted has kindly given me permission to link to that comment. Like Ted, I too hope we shall be seeing proper tributes to both Dennis Ritchie and the elegance of his creations. Sadly I feel that the mainstream media may pay less attention to the passing of this man than he deserves.

Addendum

The guardian ran a reasonable obituary profile of dmr on 13 October 2011. And on 16 October, John Naughton wrote a good piece for the Guardian’s sister paper, the Observer. In that article, Naughton says:

“It’s funny how fickle fame can be. One week Steve Jobs dies and his death tops the news agendas in dozens of countries. Just over a week later, Dennis Ritchie dies and nobody – except for a few geeks – notices.”

Quite.

And Linux Magazine posted a nice article by Jon “maddog” Hall.

Whilst I have never been an Apple fan, I was enormously saddened to learn of the death on wednesday of Steve Jobs. He was a visionary architect and was undeniably a charismatic, if idiosyncratic, leader in the world of computing and technology.

Whilst his death was not unexpected, he will be missed.