[extropy-chat] The Graphing Calculator Story

[Amara Graps]

Happy New Year's, Extropes! 

One week ago, I was collecting seaweed from the icy Baltic shores
on the outskirts of Tallinn for a marine scientist friend to test
one of his ideas. Two days ago I was walking in the birthplace of
my father: Riga ("Paris of the North") while big white fluffy
snowflakes converted a magical place into a white winter
wonderland. Today I am watching the smoke still settling over
Rome from the symphony of fireworks that embraces the city every
year on New Years eve. I hope you had a good holiday. My buses,
trains, and planes travels through Germany, Latvia and Estonia was
unusual, tiring, but it recharged a few internal batteries.

While catching up on some email and web stuff today, I came
across the following story that might appeal to the programmer
folks who reside here.

Here is a story of a couple of crazy guys who believed so
strongly in a piece of educational software that they broke all
rules to get it done.

I heard parts of this story from Ron Avitzur many years ago, but
you must read the whole story, especially to understand some of
the parts involved in corporate software development. I had a
(very) small contract for Apple in the Advanced Technology Group
supporting a scientific software package during the time that
Ron and Greg were developing this software; what he writes 
is so true from what I remember of those years; I  couldn't help 
smiling.

Amara



The Graphing Calculator Story 
http://www.pacifict.com/Story/

quote from the page:

"Why did Greg and I do something so ludicrous as sneaking into an
eight-billion-dollar corporation to do volunteer work? Apple was
having financial troubles then, so we joked that we were
volunteering for a nonprofit organization. In reality, our
motivation was complex. Partly, the PowerPC was an awesome
machine, and we wanted to show off what could be done with it; in
the Spinal Tap idiom, we said, "OK, this one goes to eleven."
Partly, we were thinking of the storytelling value. Partly, it
was a macho computer guy thing - we had never shipped a million
copies of software before. Mostly, Greg and I felt that creating
quality educational software was a public service. We were doing
it to help kids learn math. Public schools are too poor to buy
software, so the most effective way to deliver it is to install
it at the factory.

Beyond this lies another set of questions, both psychological and
political. Was I doing this out of bitterness that my project had
been canceled? Was I subversively coopting the resources of a
multinational corporation for my own ends? Or was I naive,
manipulated by the system into working incredibly hard for its
benefit? Was I a loose cannon, driven by arrogance and ego, or
was I just devoted to furthering the cause of education?

I view the events as an experiment in subverting power
structures. I had none of the traditional power over others that
is inherent to the structure of corporations and bureaucracies. I
had neither budget nor headcount. I answered to no one, and no
one had to do anything I asked. Dozens of people collaborated
spontaneously, motivated by loyalty, friendship, or the love of
craftsmanship. We were hackers, creating something for the sheer
joy of making it work."


And:
Discussion of this story on slashdot
http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/22/0146243

--------
Amara Graps, PhD
Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI)
Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF),
Adjunct Assistant Professor Astronomy, AUR,
Roma, ITALIA     Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it