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 Federico Faggin Intel 4004 (leader of intel 4004 project) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.173.127.190 (talk) 16:14, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

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

Tony Li and Yakov Rekhte, who developed the spec for Border Gateway Protocol, which allows carriers to exchange routes inside their networks and with each-other, allowing the internet to scale infinitely. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mefirefoxes (talk • contribs) 03:47, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

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)

Definitely some names in there that should be in the list. Noel (talk) 14:55, 17 October 2018 (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)

Does Charles Moore (inventor of FORTH) qualify as a pioneer? Handyandy802 (talk) 13:41, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Philo Farnsworth and/or his Russian and/or Scottish competitor? Farnsworth himself advanced technology that was called "TV" for a while and predicted HD resolutions as high as "2000 lines" in 1954 — Preceding unsigned comment added by StinkPickle4000 (talk • contribs) 02:48, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

For Philo Farnsworth et al you would need a source stating they were pioneers in computer science. The list has a pretty straight forward WP:LISTCRITERIA - "pioneer in computer science" or someone who created, developed, or theorized computers. Farnsworth does not seem to fit any of that. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 03:25, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

John Carmack for innovations in 3-D computer graphics and novel algorithm application in video game design.

John Boyer for advancements in accessibility — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.48.240.237 (talk) 04:57, 26 February 2023 (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)

"Pioneers in Computer Science has to be early on, 1960 or even earlier."

Who says 1960 is the cutoff not to mention your statement completely does not explain why Linus Torvalds is included? 1991 < 1960? Linux was worth mentioning but the others weren't? Why is Susan L. Graham on this list? She has an achievement date of 2011, well an achievement of what? Her Wikipedia page lists only receiving an award on that date and nothing else. The page is really devoid of any proof she "pioneered" anything at all.

What constitutes the pioneering days of CS? As the last entry is for an achievement in 2011 is that saying that CS was still in it's Pioneer Age? What is considered pioneering? How direct does the achievement have to be? This list is a steamy hot mess, in other words a typical internet list.

To be clear I don't think Gates and the others from that time should be on the list as they're more involved in the advancement of later (Silver Age maybe? *shrug*) CS not the pioneering days.97.64.77.180 (talk) 21:25, 4 April 2019 (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)

I came expecting Torvalds, Gates and Wozniak. I believe they deserve mention as they pioneered the commercialization of computers, hardware and software. To be frank they also likely invented a few things too... If this is a strictly academic list I can understand their exclusion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by StinkPickle4000 (talk • contribs) 02:52, 29 January 2021 (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)

(I have revised my opinion and now think that this would violate WP:SYNTH and/or WP:OR, as well as WP:VERIFIABILITY, WP:LEADFORALIST and WP:LISTV#INC. Zazpot (talk) 20:03, 9 November 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 consensus is no in response to the question 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?. The consensus is an individual should be included on the list only based on pioneering technical work in the field of computer science.

Some editors suggested creating a List of social pioneers in science and technology or <demographic> pioneers in computer science for people who overcame social barriers in the field.

Cunard (talk) 00:22, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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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)
• No. The list should do what it says in its title. Candidates should be assessed on their pioneering contributions to computer science. Maproom (talk) 07:52, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
• No However if you want to instead, create a list of contributors to the field who had to overcome social stigmas or personal issues, then I don't think you would get as much negativity on this page, at any rate.Boundarylayer (talk) 23:51, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

• No - pioneer in the technology is the list criteria -- entries about 'algorism' mathematics or from being some non-technical accomplishment or overcoming social barriers does not suit. Grace Hopper or Ada Lovelace fine due to technical accomplishment. List needs some general pruning. Markbassett (talk) 19:31, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

• Yes. And the choir of "no" !votes is only perpetuating computer science's (well-earned) reputation for being primarily a white man's club, even to this day. Plenty of good RS discuss people as "pioneers" due in part to race and sex. Singapore's first woman president, USA's first black president, First openly gay footballer, etc. Pretending like this is not a thing is silly. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:15, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

• Interestingly, none of the examples you cite have anything to do with computer science. It would be nice if you would assume good faith on the part of the other participants here instead of trying to grasp moral high ground. It is not our job to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. This is an encyclopedia, not an activist group. Lepricavark (talk) 18:00, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

• No The list is about sci-tech achievements, not about social achievements. The latter may have their own lists: List of social pioneers in science and technology. Staszek Lem (talk) 17:32, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
• No this proposal goes beyond the proper scope of the article. Lepricavark (talk) 18:00, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
• No for the list article. Only pioneering achievements that made the person notable should be elucidated. However, in their particular biography article, if there are reliable sources that cover overcoming social barriers, then by all means, put that in their biography article. And I agree about leaving the women in this list - simply note their achievements to this field that have made a difference. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 06:40, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
• No unless social characteristics are specifically mentioned in RS. "Pioneer" is a rather nebulous term which can be defined in a number of ways which opens up OR possibilities. Including only the people in RS lists of pioneers in this field narrows the definition and makes OR much less likely to occur. Ca2james (talk) 17:17, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
• Yes summoned by bot. There needs to be consensus on the voting criteria for inclusion on this list. I think that we can all agree that one has to be notable to be on this list, first and foremost. The second criteria is where we're stuck - what makes a pioneer? In my mind, there are two types of pioneers - technical pioneers and demographic pioneers. Would you consider Jackie Robinson a baseball pioneer if he was white? No, but you'd be hard pressed to not consider him a baseball pioneer. There's too much history here for an uninvolved editor like me to come in with a blindingly simple solution to solve this debate, but put ALL pioneers here, and then create an article for technical pioneers in computer science, and one for <demographic> pioneers in computer science (insert your favorite <demographic>), where each camp can have the articles they want. TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 23:31, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

  @Timtempleton: Note we already have Women in computing (and what set off this debate - was the wholesale transfer of many names from there to here - some of which were clearly not connected (e.g. computer game programmers, a computer artist, or a government official) and others were not particularly notable (e.g. getting the "first" PHD in computer science (one should note - [1] - that women and men got there just about the same time, and that the "firstness" here was really the separation of computer science departments from math/EE/etc in institutions - it wasn't that there weren't CS PhD prior to this - they just "did it" in a different faculty so the title was different - this wasn't an achievement of the individual, just institutions setting up departments)). Jackie Robinson would've been a hall of famer (6 time all star) also if he were white and is also notable due to segregation (the outright exclusion of blacks from the majors) that he was the first to break. This never really existed on the same level in computing - the first programmer (Ada Lovelace) was a woman and women were in the field throughout its history - to whatever extent there is an issue - it is an issue of disparity not of outright exclusion.Icewhiz (talk) 08:13, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

  I get your points. I agree that willy nilly adding names to this from the other article is not the way to go, but the crux of this is how we define a pioneer. I'm going to throw down that if a reputable third party source reports that a particular person is a pioneer, whether it be for their technical achievements in computing, or the novelty of being a rare demographic in the face of systemic obstacles that were hard to overcome, that they should appear here also. Your point on the intricacies of how departments reward degrees is also valid, and so everything should be taken into consideration. Until there's a large enough number of agreed upon entries to establish precedent, we may have to consider each entry on a case by case basis on the talk page. TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 00:47, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

• No - The subject is "List of pioneers in computer science". Wiktionary defines "pioneer" as: "A person or other entity who is first or among the earliest in any field of inquiry, enterprise, or progress." I propose that entries be limited to persons who were one of the first 1-3 to significantly contribute to a computer science field, as represented by a specific Wikipedia article.--Rpclod (talk) 12:05, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
• No for very obvious reasons. scope_creep (talk) 09:19, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
• Yes - Editors determining what is "pioneering" this sounds like original research to me. Dbsseven (talk) 20:44, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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)

I let this go already. I thought I had been crystal clear. Please keep her. By all means. I would in fact also encourage you, in all seriousness, to add other entries who might have done unspecified significant contributions to the field that remain unknown because of discrimination (incidentally, this is the reasoning of conspiracy theorists: we assume a cure for cancer exists, then claim we don't know what it is because of the conspiracy; also, while all doctors deny it, they can't possibly know everything, medicine is so big a field!). I would go as far as suggesting that the homeless guy in my block be added, as he might have a proof that P=NP. The more the quality of Wikipedia degrades, the more my knowledge and my collection of print books appreciates. Please, keep going. You're working for me, in a strictly game-theoretic sense. MrFlowerpot (talk) 09:19, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

The sources are clear enough, and the relevant passages of them have been quoted in the citations. Anyhow, thank you for letting this go, and for acknowledging that Elizabeth Boyd Granville should indeed, by all means, be kept. Zazpot (talk) 14:49, 31 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) 05:25, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

(I have revised my opinion and now think that this would violate WP:SYNTH and/or WP:OR, as well as WP:VERIFIABILITY, WP:LEADFORALIST and WP:LISTV#INC. Zazpot (talk) 15:13, 2 November 2017 (UTC))

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)

Yes, not limited to people who have received one of those awards, but I think that they are a good indication of recognition by other computer scientists. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 00:32, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Bubba73, thank you for your reply. It seems you and I are agreed that:

• possession of such an award justifies inclusion in the list; and
• lack of such an award does not in itself justify exclusion from the list. Zazpot (talk) 15:31, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

(I have revised my opinion and now think that this would violate WP:SYNTH and/or WP:OR, as well as WP:VERIFIABILITY, WP:LEADFORALIST and WP:LISTV#INC. Zazpot (talk) 15:13, 2 November 2017 (UTC))

I would suggest the following for consideration as well:

* The ACM SIGPLAN Programming Languages Achievement Award as well (http://www.sigplan.org/Awards/): "The Programming Languages Achievement Award is given by ACM SIGPLAN to recognize an individual or individuals who has made a significant and lasting contribution to the field of programming languages." (Notice how the list of recipients reads as a list of pioneers: http://www.sigplan.org/Awards/Achievement/)

* The SIGPLAN Most Influential Paper Award: "SIGPLAN presents these awards to the author(s) of a paper presented at the POPL, PLDI, ICFP, and OOPSLA held 10 years prior to the award year. The award includes a prize of $1,000 to be split among the authors of the winning paper. The papers are judged by their influence over the past decade." MrFlowerpot (talk) 09:26, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

And maybe ETCS Award laureates (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Association_for_Theoretical_Computer_Science#EATCS_Award): "the EATCS Award [...] is awarded in recognition of a distinguished career in theoretical computer science" MrFlowerpot (talk) 13:06, 31 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)

Surely one cannot help but see a biological feature they have in common. It angers me to no end when I think about the fact that groundbreaking researchers and recipients of ACM SIGPLAN PLA Award, Turing Award and/or Harlan D. Mills award winners Susan Graham, Fran Allen and Radhia Cousot share the same gender -- women in computer science definitely don't need "token entries". MrFlowerpot (talk)

This actually does a disservice for women. Instead of highlighting the highly notable and distinguished women who contributed to the field since its founding, the reader is served with government officials, undergrad computer programmers, and computer game programmers (just women however in this category) - all women, while male entries are "heavy hitters". This particular bunch - requires a better evaluation than just me - would appreciate if you weight in on the merits of each.Icewhiz (talk) 09:57, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

I already underlined it. Quite frankly, I've been a steadfast champion of computer science, women and women in computer science since the past millennium, and I find it very irritating when people who recently jumped on the bandwagon armed with little and often incorrect knowledge feel the need to condescendingly emphasize women's achievements of the touchy-feely kind, misrepresenting both computer science as a whole and women's contribution.

It's as if these self-appointed supporters of women in science are themselves filled with the most retrograde sort of prejudice: "Hey, let's add a game designer and a multimedia artist to show that women can contribute as well... in their own way, of course.".

Surely you remember how a few years ago Mattel got in a controversy because in their coloring book "Computer Engineer Barbie", Barbie actually only does the design, whereas a team of male hipsters does the... actual engineering (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/nov/21/barbie-computer-engineer-story-withdrawn-sexist-mattel). Now, in my opinion this is exactly the same thing. Except that Barbie books for children are not exactly the most scholarly of references; if on Wikipedia the achievements of women in CS are represented by "Susan Kare, graphic designer who worked for Apple", I find that's more worrying.

Sorry for venting out, but I wanted my motivation to be clear, especially since there were accusations of misogyny being thrown a few paragraphs above. MrFlowerpot (talk) 12:38, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

I find it offensive that you are specifically and deliberately trying to reduce the number of women on this list, while completely ignoring the many men on the list who have had little lasting impact (e.g. Nikolay Brusentsov or Eiichi Goto). This list needs stronger standards for what makes someone a pioneer, I agree, but making being male part of those standards is wrong. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:34, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

As I mentioned elsewhere, non-notable entries of male gender need to go away too; I specfically mentioned Shiraz Shivji and Tadashi Sasaki, but we can do without Goto as well (Boehm and Jacopini proved it :P ). However, it is apparent that somebody with no background in computer science had the brilliant idea of throwing in a large number of women who sort of vaguely had to do with computers (from enterpreneurs to actual computers) as token entries, at the same time ignoring just about all distinguished female scientists (I mean, Turing and Milner are in the list, the occasional Goto is not predominant). This seems to be a bigger, more urgent and systematic problem that requires attention. No need to be offended. MrFlowerpot (talk) 06:42, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

The article underwent a rapid gender-specific expansion from 1 October - revision as of October 1 - which is what I personally mainly targeted (and what got me really going was the inclusion of 3 computer game programmers (e.g. Carla Meninsky), a government official (Megan Smith - notable for being the first woman to hold the position, after 2 men (absent on the list as they should be)), and PhD level achievements (first X to get a PhD, first X to get award for PhD)). I agree on Brusentsov and Goto (and removed them now). I also think some of the men on the list require some review, and that there are some omissions (of men and women).Icewhiz (talk) 06:53, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

I removed some clearly not globally notable pioneers and tagged undue on: Corrado Böhm, David Caminer, André Truong Trong Thi+François Gernelle, Pier Giorgio Perotto, Gerard Salton, and Tadashi Sasaki (engineer) - from whom I'd appreciate input.Icewhiz (talk) 07:33, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

I think the recently deceased Boehm has reason to stay. His early results on self-hosting compilers and the Boehm-Jacopini theorem are pretty pioneering achievements, if you ask me.

Particularly, the Boehm-Jacopini paper is one of two references cited in EWD215 aka "GOTO Considered Harmful" in 1968 (https://homepages.cwi.nl/~storm/teaching/reader/Dijkstra68.pdf), so you can see how he had a key role in shaping structured programming and, generally, modern programming languages and practice.

The EATCS in its obituary also calls the result "seminal" for having "more than 200 citations in the 70s" alone (https://eatcs.org/index.php/component/content/article/1-news/2574-obituary-for-corrado-bohm)

Moreover, it says that "in the occasion of his 70-th and 90-th birthday, the international Computer Science community dedicated to Corrado Bohm two volumes of international journals. In 2001 he was awarded in recognition of a distinguished career in theoretical computer science by the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science, EATCS AWARD." [emphasis mine]

I feel that removing Boehm would amount to diminishing the importance of the Structured Program Theorem, which I would not be 100% happy with.

(Funnily, when I used it jocularly in the above post you had not called for Bohem's removal yet ;) MrFlowerpot (talk) 12:24, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

@MrFlowerpot: Removed the undue tag - his wiki article - Corrado Böhm - doesn't reflect what you just wrote - probably should be updated. I tagged undue on those I believe a second or third set of eyes are needed (either due to my personal lack of knowledge or due to their wiki article does not reflecting/asserting a pioneering status clearly).Icewhiz (talk) 12:54, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, if I have the time I may have a look myself over the weekend. P.s.: The obituary also points out that Bohm "was one of the first scientists to investigate the link between λ-calculus and theoretical computer science" and, thanks to you, I found out that Bohm trees (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%B6hm_tree) are named after the man himself (it never occurred to me) and probbably need to be mentioned in his article as well. MrFlowerpot (talk) 13:11, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

IEEE Computer Pioneer Award

Under See Also, I added a link to the relevant IEEE Computer Pioneer Award. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 19:13, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Proposed for deletion due to "male/western systemic bias"?

So, if I understand correctly, user Zazpot's 10 day long tantrum is culminating with the claim that there is a male/western "systemic bias" (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_pioneers_in_computer_science&oldid=808087384), which if I understand correctly is something "created by the shared social and cultural characteristics of most editors" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Systemic_bias).

This comes after two or three pages of discussion have been spent in which more or less everybody has kept suggesting that individuals of female gender with no achievement whatsoever on the list (e.g. graphic designers, cabinet ministers...) be replaced with Turing prize and EATCS Award winners of compatible gender. It is also my impression that the user in question has kept a steadfast opposition with increasingly byzantine reasoning.

In case the reader's wits are particularly slow, I'll sum it up as follows: everyone but Zazpot wants to improve representation of women as well as non-American scientists on this list in terms of both quality and quantity.

If I am to loosely translate a saying from my native land, I'd say this amounts to "pissing on the roses and blaming the wolf for it".

I suppose the call for deletion also show's the user's willingness to "cut the baby in half" (as in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgment_of_Solomon) when faced with the impossibility of controlling the page's content.

I see the following possible explanations for this:

1. User is acting in good faith but has no idea of what "computer science" is and what constitutes an achievement in the field.
2. User is acting in good faith and I have no idea of what computer science is, my degree is trash.
3. User is acting in good faith, has a strong CS background but has seriously bad comprehension skills and misunderstands his/her sources
4. User is acting in good faith and I am misunderstanding sources, possibly because I'm not an English speaker
5. User is not acting in good faith and is pushing some sort of agenda and wants to see some sort of side effect from this behaviour (no idea which).
6. User is not acting in good faith and is trolling for the lulz.
7. User has a medical condition that is resulting in psychotic symptoms.

As I've stated otherwise, in a strictly game-theoretic sense, as a white male computer scientist ("aaargh, cis scum!") I benefit from this user's efforts in lowering the quality of Wikipedia as a whole and in misrepresenting both computer science and women's contributions to it, as this both appreciates my degree, my accumulated knowledge and my Y chromosome.

Everybody, have fun with this, life is frankly too short for spending days in working against those who are unwittingly trying to maximize your utility. Sir or Madam, please continue working for my benefit.

This will be my last post at least until sanity is re-established (last but not least because I'm likely going to get banned - pity, I registered because I was trying to do a public service, but I see bullies are privileged around here). — Preceding unsigned comment added by MrFlowerpot (talk • contribs) 21:50, 31 October 2017 (UTC) — MrFlowerpot (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

I do not intend to reply to the demeaning comment above, except to note that I have never objected to the inclusion in the list of "Turing prize [or] EATCS Award winners" of any gender. (Quite the opposite.) I merely object to the deletion, especially without consensus, of anyone who has been verifiably described, in reliable sources, in terms closely matching the title or lede of the list. Zazpot (talk) 23:52, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Flowerpot, I think you are misunderstanding the reason for deletion, the problem is that there is no clear definition of a "pioneer in CS", so the criteria for inclusion in this article is based on OR. The bias tag is not a deletion tag. Tornado chaser (talk) 23:54, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

@MrFlowerpot:Note that I disagreed with Zazpot on the RfC but still think the reasons given for deletion are valid. Also, parts of your last comment could be taken as a personal attack. Tornado chaser (talk) 23:57, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

@Tornado chaser:, thank you. Please could you add a bolded word clarifying your position, for the sake of readers (or bots) who may simply be skimming this discussion? Thanks again, Zazpot (talk) 00:53, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

It simply amazes me how much damage one person can do to an article. We see the "systemic bias" tag added only after random female programmers and politicians of no relevance were removed. We are also now supposed to deal with the notice for deletion in 7 days or less (despite me being told to WP:NOHURRY before). Obviously other people who have talked about this article in such detail do not think it should all be deleted. There has been *no* discussion on deletion. At least have the courtesy of presenting clear *facts* of systematic bias and lack of a clear criteria, like I and many others have done with what we thought were issues. PS: This article is draining any motivation to contribute. It should have been addressed by an admin/mod weeks ago. Gajop (talk) 00:41, 1 November 2017 (UTC) — Gajop (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Gajop, it seems fair to warn readers that there may be some bias in the list. My own concerns notwithstanding, MrFlowerpot has already pointed out several female computing pioneers who are missing (e.g. Radhia Cousot, Fei-Fei Li, Mariangiola Dezani-Ciancaglini, Toby Bloom) and highlighted - albeit less supportively - the absence of Soviet and Chinese pioneers. Bubba73 noted the absence of Susan L. Graham. Icewhiz deletedflagged a non-Western list entrant (Tadashi Sasaki), despite Andy Dingley's clear objection. And as for the awards being used as inclusion criteria, they don't seem to be significantly less biased than, say, The Oscars or Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

As for WP:NOHURRY, that's correct. You might want to re-read the deletion notice (you'll find it in older versions of the article, in the edit history). Zazpot (talk) 03:06, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

So now you have added a tag of "Wikipedia:Single-purpose account few or no other edits outside this topic." to me and some other person's account, presumable in attempts to discredit these arguments? I don't know if you're trying to claim that I have multiple accounts, but I would like to ask you to STOP these edits which are directed at me. You previously modified my Wikipedia's talk page, and the RFC on this page that I originally made - which I let slide because I am not as experienced, and could've committed a faux pas unwittingly, but now I do not see your motives as sincere. While I now have a lot of Talk page contributions here, I am generally not interested in becoming an active Wikipedia editor. I thought I could contribute by discussing and addressing a minor issue I thought this page had - hence the first Talk section which I made regarding that. If I knew it would take this much energy to discuss it I probably never would've started it. Gajop (talk) 17:45, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Gajop, I tagged you and MrFlowerpot per WP:SPA for only one reason: you both met the criteria. That's routine, it's nothing personal.

I have made only one edit to your talk page: I added a welcome template to it per WP:WC because nobody else had yet done so. Again, that's routine, it's nothing personal.

I explained my edit to your RFC in my edit summary. You thanked me for that edit. Had you objected, then of course we could have discussed it and come up with a different outcome. I am dismayed that you think I might not be sincere, and hope that you will reconsider that conclusion.

I recognise your frustration about this article. I was once a new editor, too. I understand that you have a vision about how the article should be, and that any impediment is likely to feel unwelcome. But please understand that I am not seeking to cause frustration. I am deeply concerned about the amount of original research and synthesis in this article, and the scope for bias. I am not convinced that these are remediable, because there simply is no objective, global standard of what constitutes a "pioneer of computer science", nor is there an objective, globally-agreed list of awards that convey that meaning, to the exclusion of all other awards. I am disappointed that only one or two other editors seem to have twigged how deeply these problems pervade the article and its WP:VERIFIABILITY. I am almost never inclined to deletion, but in this instance it still seems to me to be the only path that is consistent with Wikipedia's editing standards. Failing that, the article should at least be renamed and given a new lede, to more accurately reflect whatever criteria for inclusion are arrived at. By saying all this, I hope you can see that I am acting in earnest good faith. Zazpot (talk) 19:48, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

"Good faith"? Nope, I don't recognize it. That ship has sailed long ago. After three pages of you trying to get in a completely irrelevant woman, I can't believe in your good faith.

I am usually a peaceful man, but I just can't persuade myself that your attempts to add people with no contributions to computer science mean that you either

1. Aren't understanding what you are reading, you know you don't have the background to understand a word of it and don't have the humility to take a step back (this doesn't count as good faith in my book).

2. Are willingly (i.e. not in good faith) advancing some weird agenda. Your edits incidentally reminds me of the language of so-called "social justice warriors" in America. This bothers me, in that us citizens of the civilized world should not have to see Wikipedia entries defaced with random African-American entries just to compensate the ongoing mistreatment of minorities and the inequality rampant in America.

The fact that you are continuing to use Wikipedia bureaucracy for all intents and purposes as a weapon against anybody opposing you does very little in the way of persuading me of your good faith. Even worse, you are a keen user of the old fashioned strawman, barricading yourself behind "we don't do original research". We all understand that Wikipedia does not do original research, but I believe that Wikipedia is not a simple website scraper and there is such as a thing as editorship, which concerns itself with including relevant stuff and avoiding throwing obvious garbage in.

"I've found it on some site" is hardly sufficient reason to throw anything in. That's what archive.org does. Obviously, if your sources don't say at all what you claim they say, it's even a bigger strawman.

Ultimately, a blatant lie is a blatant lie, and it is my impression you're trying exceptionally hard to get a blatant lie in (i.e. adding random floorsweeper at Harvard #1234 as a "pioneer in CS"). MrFlowerpot (talk) 21:55, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

I did not remove Tadashi Sasaki (engineer) - I tagged with undue as he should be discussed. His inclusion isn't consistent with the inclusion/non-inclusion of other early PC commercial development figures, and he's noted for making a business pitch (that got others to develop the 4004) and being a patent licensee.Icewhiz (talk) 11:23, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Icewhiz, apologies for my error about Sasaki. I have amended my wording above. Zazpot (talk) 19:14, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

And, I'll note, I added Susan L. Graham Revision as of 06:42, 1 November 2017 prior to your comment, who as a IEEE John von Neumann Medal is easily externally vetted as being significant (I'm less sure regarding Radhia Cousot, Fei-Fei Li (who is very distinguished for a 41 year old), Mariangiola Dezani-Ciancaglini, Toby Bloom - the latter two are missing wiki articles as well - which assuming they're considered for here, they should definitely merit). We should be basing our inclusion or non-inclusion on "diversity", but rather on concrete contributions to the field.Icewhiz (talk) 11:40, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Sorry? I really think Cousot is the only one out of the bunch who undisputably belongs to this list, by having single-handedly invented an entire, very active, subfield and having won just about every prize awarded for a distinguished career. Just head over to her Wikipedia page. MrFlowerpot (talk) 22:03, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

• Delete. Tornado chaser summarised the situation well: "the problem is that there is no clear definition of a 'pioneer in CS', so the criteria for inclusion in this article is based on OR." I'd add that, perhaps more importantly, the criteria for exclusion have so far also been based on original research. Zazpot (talk) 00:47, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

I've removed the prod. If the inclusion criteria are unclear then the thing to do is to discuss them on the talk page, as we are doing, to clarify them. PROD is only for uncontroversial deletion, so prodding this list because clear inclusion criteria have not been listed on the talk page yet is not appropriate. Meters (talk) 01:16, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Meters, I appreciate your good intentions. Unfortunately, as I have pointed out above more than once, and as Tornado Chaser summarised, there is no clear definition of "pioneer in computer science". The discussion above shows that consensus is unlikely to be reached on that front, and as Wikipedia is WP:NOT for lists without clear criteria for inclusion/exclusion, the article should be deleted. Zazpot (talk) 01:44, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Disagreement over inclusion criteria is not a reason for deletion. There is already a discussion started on determining the criteria. Again, "PROD is only for uncontroversial deletion." If you think this should be deleted then take it to AFD, but I suggest that you will need more than just this weak argument. I think the"pioneers" part of the article title is poorly chosen, but that can be fixed with a move (or a merge if there is already a more suitable list). Meters (talk) 01:53, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Meters, a lack of such criteria is reason for deletion, though, and that's where we find ourselves: with substantial disagreement remaining over who should be excluded from the list and why.

I should note that before PRODding the article, I considered instead proposing a move to something like, "Winners of major awards in Computer Science", but:

• this would exclude people like Ada Lovelace, who predate such awards and yet whom no-one commenting above wants to see excluded;
• it is still just as subjective, because there are no agreed criteria for what constitutes a "major award in computer science" (sure, some awards are definitely major, but others are likely to be contentious; see, for example, Icewhiz's comment about "2nd/3rd tier awards"); and
• Wikipedia ought to have, for each notable award, a standalone list of its recipients; so why create a redundant, WP:SYNTH list of the intersection?

Due to these concerns, I stand by my deletion proposal. If you can address these concerns, please do so. So far, I don't see any evidence that they are resolvable without violating WP:SYNTH or WP:NOR. Zazpot (talk) 02:41, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

You PRODded it and I removed it, as any editor is allowed to do. I f you think it should be deleted then take it to AFD for a full discussion. There is no point in discussing it here. Meters (talk) 02:46, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Fair :) I'll give it some more thought over the coming days, and step back for a bit anyway, to see if others come up with any better solutions. Zazpot (talk) 03:10, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

• The admirable good faith suggestions of Zazpot in regard to male/western bias probably address a topic that has no reliably-sourced solution. An inaccurate-but-related analogy would be the list of Baseball Hall of Famers, which includes only one woman - you can't shoehorn in something which isn't there for the well-intentioned but, in this case, innately inaccurate goal of attaining diversity. I'm by-far not an expert on the history of computer advancements, yet those who have this expertise have or can point out that when computers were being thought of, invented, and developed the pioneers were by-and-large western males, and those are just the facts. The women who were able to achieve major pioneering advancements in the field despite the culturally-present systematic bias have or will be added, with the emphasis on "major". This is a list of computer pioneers, best designed not as a diversity balancing act but as a collection of the facts. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:25, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Randy, I appreciate your good intentions, but your argument fails because there are multiple WP:INDEPENDENT WP:RS that make claims of pioneering achievement in computing for numerous women who have been deleted from this list by editors active on this talk page. As for Western bias, what about the absence of, e.g. Nikolay Brusentsov? Zazpot (talk) 14:26, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Hi Zazpot. As for Brusentsov, as I mentioned above, I'm far from an expert in this field, and in my edits would include only the obvious pages which reach the highest degree of accomplishment related to the criteria for the list. If there is a question then the chances are good that the page isn't list worthy, although individual names, such as Brusentsov, can be discussed in their own section with knowledgeable editors weighing in. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:34, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Purely as a public service (because I just don't have it in me to watch people drowning in ignorance and stay passive) let me point out that if Zazpot is referring to Granville or Marissa Meyer again there are no references saying that either one is a practitioner, much less a pioneer in computer science. There are simply a few web pages of dubious reliability and often obvious bias (particularly of the "girls who code! yeee!" variety) which happen to include the worlds "pioneer" and "computer" somewhere. They make no such claim as the one Zazpot is suggesting. MrFlowerpot (talk) 21:55, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

• Note, I just got here for the RFC, and on a quick skim of this page: yes, many of these comments reek of systemic white male bias. Many of you should be ashamed of yourselves. User:Zazpot, I thank you for your efforts in this matter. Deletion and general lack of representation of women (and non-white, and non-western people) is a serious problem on WP, The Guardian even has a whole article on it, not that the people who need to read it will :-/ See also Women_in_science#Social.2C_historical_and_critical_studies. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:29, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Arbitrary break - Inclusion Criteria

Deletion is not the answer; let's work out some criteria. It seems to me that sensible criteria would remove some of the males, and perhaps help us be more fair to the females and others. Like why are Shima and Tukey here? Chip layout and FFT are not computer science, imho. But if the criterion includes Fellows of the Computer History Museum, then Shima is in. Tukey, still not, even though he was a great pioneer in statistics and such (OK, maybe I'm wrong about him; his article says he came up with the term "bit"; but not for FFT). Dicklyon (talk) 16:32, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Setting inclusion criteria is one thing, but being "more fair to the females and others" has nothing to do with it. We should not be trying to artificially balance gender ratios, just as we should not try to balance citizenship, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, favourite baseball teams, or anything else for the list members. Decide what "pioneers" means (if it just means prominent then rename the article", set reasonable inclusion criteria, and let the list fall where it may. Meters (talk) 18:36, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Nobody said anything about trying to balance, but there's an open fairness complaint to be dealt with, I believe. Dicklyon (talk) 02:45, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Well said Meters, lets take this to AFD or come up with a good set of criteria. Tornado chaser (talk) 18:46, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

We already have an open RFC on inclusion criteria, but it focused on "the overcoming of social barriers" as a criterion. It appears to have failed and should likely be closed. So, lets discuss criteria in general . I think the first thing we need to decide is whether this list should just list "prominent (i.e., notable) computer scientists as opposed to "pioneers". If so we rename the list, and the inclusion criteria just become the obvious "is a computer scientist" and has a wikiarticle. I think this is a better list than a nebulous pioneers criterion. Meters (talk) 19:00, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

A list of notables (e.g. wiki article notability + CS profession) would have thousands, if not more, listed. This list should be much much more selective. Including based on tier1 awards (e.g. Turing) and RfC for early pioneers and exceptions would be the route to go in my mind.Icewhiz (talk) 19:05, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

He have that already, at List of computer scientists. Pioneers should be a select subset based on criteria about top industry awards and such recognition. We could start by just enumerating the awards mentioned for the people listed, and see how that looks. Dicklyon (talk) 02:43, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

There are links to several awards, which is nice, but I think that if all of those were included, that would be too many people. One possibility - list people who are on at least two of those awards lists, plus, of course, obvious ones who predate the awards. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 03:48, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Awards that are only a handful per year are pretty darn selective. I wouldn't say everyone that makes Fellow of the ACM would qualify, though. Maybe Fellow of the ACM and also Fellow of the IEEE? Nah, then you've have to list me. Dicklyon (talk) 04:11, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

For some reason I didn't find List of computer scientists even though it's right where I would expect it. OK, do that's cleared up. So what do we mean by "pioneers"? If it just means "really notable, not like those common notables in List of computer scientists" then I don't think we need this list. Notable is notable. If we want to list the winners of handful of very select computing science awards then we would be better served by a few List of Award X winners articles. If we want to mention people who were critical to the early development of computing science (what I take "pioneers" to mean) or people who made highly significant advances in computing science then it should be done in the body of the appropriate computing science article. Meters (talk) 04:30, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

I disagree. A list of pioneers is very useful for those wanting a good entry into the history of the field. Dicklyon (talk) 04:51, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Again, what do we mean by "pioneers"? Meters (talk) 04:55, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Exactly. Let's decide. Dicklyon (talk) 05:04, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

We should formulate this precisely, as discussed above, however in imprecise terms a pioneer would be someone who made a transformative breakthrough in the field. Usually doing something major for the first time or really pushing a major concept. You'd expect such a person to be mentioned on History of computing or History of computer science.Icewhiz (talk) 07:42, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Those words, "someone who made a transformative breakthrough", seem a good central theme to build the criteria around, and I made an edit to the lead to change the obviously overly broad 'helped' to your language. And I totally agree with Dicklyon, this is a very useful list and should be kept. It's like an unofficial but important Wikipedia-based hall of fame, so we should be careful to get it right, and the people who care about this page seem to be going in that direction. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:40, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

An "unofficial but important Wikipedia-based hall of fame" is precisely WP:SYNTH. "We should formulate" what "we mean by pioneers" is WP:NOR.

Wikipedia does not publish original research. Its content is determined by previously published information rather than the beliefs or experiences of its editors.

— WP:VERIFIABILITY

When is this going to sink in? Zazpot (talk) 14:17, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Umm, no, setting inclusion criteria (or in your paraphrased quote "We should formulate" what "we mean by pioneers" is WP:NOR.") - is NOT WP:OR. To the contrary, it is accepted practice in Wikipedia to set inclusion criteria. See WP:LISTV#INC and WP:LEADFORALIST. Setting criteria is exactly what editors do. Note that Wikipedia:Lists in Wikipedia#Lists should generally only represent consensus opinion runs contrary to some of your edits (which were based on a single (or few) source(s) (sometimes RS, sometimes iffy) saying X was a pioneer (of computing? Of first X of type Y to do Z in computing? Both flew)).Icewhiz (talk) 14:31, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Neither of those guidance documents support your argument:

[Be] aware of original research when selecting the criteria for inclusion: use a criterion that is widely agreed upon rather than inventing new criteria that cannot be verified as notable or that is not widely accepted.

— WP:LISTV#INC

It should not be asserted that the most popular view or some sort of intermediate view among the different views is the correct one.

— WP:LEADFORALIST

Zazpot (talk) 14:53, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

The correct policy link is WP:LISTCRITERIA and WP:LISTBIO (what I linked to was a well-regarded essay and the MOS alluding to said criteria). Establishing membership criteria for list (which should be "unambiguous, objective, and supported by reliable sources.") is an editorial decision.Icewhiz (talk) 15:44, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. WP:LISTBIO doesn't support your argument: for stand-alone lists like this one, it just refers the reader to WP:LISTCRITERIA. As for the latter, I will give it more thought. Zazpot (talk) 09:40, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

OK, I've given it some thought. WP:LISTCRITERIA doesn't exist in a vacuum. It must be read in conjunction with WP:LEADFORALIST, WP:LISTV#INC, WP:VERIFIABILITY, WP:SYNTH and WP:OR, all of which indicate that this article, and the approach taken by many of its editors and talk page contributors, is in serious breach of Wikipedia's objectives on multiple fronts (see discussion above).

Even if we considered WP:LISTCRITERIA in isolation, it says, "Selection criteria (also known as inclusion criteria or membership criteria) should be unambiguous, objective, and supported by reliable sources." Well, there is no objective list of computing pioneers, so that should rule out the article.

You might retort that WP:LISTCRITERIA goes on to say, "In cases where the membership criteria are subjective or likely to be disputed (for example, lists of unusual things or terrorist incidents), it is especially important that inclusion be based on reliable sources given with inline citations for each item." Well in that case, Elizabeth Boyd Granville should definitely be on the list, despite your repeated removal of her, as she has reliable sources making the claim. I.e. you can't have it both ways: if the article stays on the basis of an isolated, selective reading of WP:LISTCRITERIA, then Granville (and potentially other verifiable computing pioneers who you have deleted, e.g. the ENIAC programmers) should be included.

Either of these outcomes - deletion of the article, or inclusion of entries based on WP:RS - would be better than the biased, policy-violating and thoroughly subjective article we presently have. Zazpot (talk) 19:26, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Book

I've ordered the book The Computer Pioneers: The Making of the Modern Computer. It was published in 1986, but it should be a good reference for pioneers. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 17:25, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

I got the book. I hoped for a chapter on each pioneer, but there isn't one. I could get them out of the index. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 17:26, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Page 206 of the book lists these people as the main ones to get computing into the electronic era: JP Eckert, W Eckert, J Mauchly, J Brainerd, J Atanasoff, C Berry, K Zuse, G Stibitz, J von Neumann, T Flowers, A Coombs, IJ Good, A Turing, H Aiken, V Bush, G Hopper, N Wiener, O Velben, and DH Lehmer. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 01:10, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion

I have nominated this page for deletion on the basis that a list of this type is inherently WP:OR. The fact that a debate is going on here about the merit of various computer scientists is, in my mind, a great reason for the existence of the WP:OR policy. CapitalSasha ~ talk 06:30, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

It seems like this could be a good page if there was, say, a small Wikipedia committee or group wiling to ensure (1) an objective criteria for inclusion and (2) the criteria is applied for membership. Otherwise unrelated fodder is creeping in like Software Defined Networking. (It seems like a red flag should have been raised on several levels, like (1) 2007 progression being labeled as pioneering, (2) the names associated with the progression are not well known or honored, like Dijkstra, Kay or Knuth).

Chronological instead of alphabetical

Would this list be more informative if items were listed chronologically? One point in favor of it is that readers would then be able to trace the history of the innovations while at the same time familiarizing themselves with the individuals. Or maybe a separate alphabetical list of names-only after the chart. Randy Kryn (talk) 06:13, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

It's already sortable that way, but needs work in this regard. The date formatting is inconsistent. This can probably be fixed by moving second, third, etc. accomplishments for the same person to their own cells with their own date cells, or at very least using a consistent multi-line format with the same cell. I have no idea what "1972 1973" is supposed to convey, and it fails MOS:DATE.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:03, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

History Hole

I cannot take the page seriously when it starts jumping from year 830 directly to 1944. Bohan (talk) 16:38, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Software Defined Networking

I removed this section from the table (more correctly, commented it out):

|-
| 2007

| [[Nick McKeown]], Scott Shenkar, Martin Casado
| Created [[Software Defined Networking]]

I'm not sure if it was inadvertently added or added as a joke. If it was genuinely added then I think it should be discussed first since there does not appear to be anything pioneering "XXX as a service", with XXX=Networking. I also fear it will lead to additional taint, like including Software Defined Radios or Cloud Computing as pioneering milestones. Jeffrey Walton (talk) 14:10, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

List still has problems

This list still has problems; it's too long, and includes too many people who did not have a significant impact.

First, the title of the list ('pioneers in computer science') would to my mind mostly rule out anyone before the 1930s (modulo Babbage, Lovelace and a few others) since none of them really had a significant CS impact.

Another big one is a seeming attempt to add more women just to... have more women in the list. This has produced such absurdities as listing Elizabeth Feinler and not Jon Postel (Jake is a wonderful person, but her accomplishments don't, I think, merit inclusion on this list, whereas Jon's might); listing Sally Floyd, but not Van Jacobson (although Van did important stuff, but not to the point of being worthy of being in this list), etc. (If you don't understand why I have paired them, you need to study them, and what they worked on, a bit more.) There are women who absolutely belong (starting with Grace Hopper and Lynn Conway, although it's not clear which class to credit the latter to), but trying to add women just to have more females is just as pernicious as adding (or removing) people because of their skin colour. Historical/etc circumstances have left an un-balanced list, but... it is what it is. What's next, adding more female musicians to a list of jazz greats to make it more balanced? (To show just how pernicious balancing can be, how about adding more white musicians? Nonsense, of course.)

And several notable names that IMO are missing: Christopher Strachey, Jay W. Forrester (for Whirlwind, the first real-time computer, and core memory), Alonzo Church, Ken Olsen (minicomputers were a major step from mainframes to personal computers), maybe Max Newman (for Baby). I'm sure a search through lists of Turing Award winners, etc would turn up more. Noel (talk) 15:38, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Dates within the list

What is the logic of the dates/years next to inventors? I'm sorry I'm new to Wikipedia's editing functions (and hence community), so I won't edit anything in the article. But I read the list like the year should correspond to the invention(s). And e.g. Herman Hollerith filed his patent in 1889, whereas in the list the dates 1961, 1969, and 1978 are mentioned. Please help me understand the logic.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Konstantinweiss (talk • contribs) 14:04, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, there is no logic now. The dates have been messed up by this edit which transferred the dates which had been attributed to Tony Hoare to Hollerith, when Hoare was removed from the list. – wbm1058 (talk) 20:39, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Yup. Fixed now; see below. Dicklyon (talk) 02:12, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Year errors

In this edit, entries were wrongly grouped, screwing up large numbers of years. Can someone suggest a process to fix? Dicklyon (talk) 21:03, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Never mind, I went through and checked them all and fixed two more. The errors were mostly due to the original deletions, not so much the undo that I linked. Dicklyon (talk) 02:09, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

If someone's good with an editor, please move the blank lines to where they separate entries, so this kind of thing won't get repeated. Dicklyon (talk) 02:12, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

John Postel?

Why Jonh Postel is not present in this list? --Rubinetto (talk) 09:50, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Satoshi Nakamoto not to be used to represent an individual person

"Satoshi Nakamoto is the name used by the presumed pseudonymous person or persons who developed bitcoin" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto)

The table header is labelled "Person" while this 'Nakamoto' does not uniformly fall under that categorization, being a name possibly representing a group of people. It may be likened to the credit given to the complete works of Shakespeare when said credit has not been proven to be accurate. The suggested edits would not necessarily entail removal of the name altogether, however either re-labeling the table header to something more general such as "Name", or adding a subscript note next to the specific name such as Satoshi Nakamoto^[Pseudonym] — Preceding unsigned comment added by AlbertACJefferson (talk • contribs) 14:35, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Proposed addition

Shouldn't Dan Ingalls be in this list. He was a pioneer of object-oriented programming and invented bitblit, the basis for bitmapped graphics.Bill (talk) 19:22, 28 June 2020 (UTC) Also should not Dado Banatao be here he designed the first single chip, 16-bit microprocessor-based calculator.[2] In 1981, he developed the first 10-Mbit Ethernet CMOS with silicon coupler data-link control and transceiver chip while working in Seeq Technology. He was also credited for the first system logic chip set for IBM's PC-XT and the PC-AT; the local bus concept and the first Windows Graphics accelerator chip for personal computers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.130.43.171 (talk) 15:57, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Bertrand Meyer

I just added Bertrand Meyer for [[design by contract]. In my own career this was one of my top ten seminal texts. There's not much new here you won't find in Dijkstra (at least by implication), but Dijkstra's wisdom was often brusque and acerbic, whereas Meyer's modular distillation could be usefully applied by an entire development team the very next day.

Others may differ. Feel free to redact if the consensus is otherwise. My vote is complete in having made this edit in the first place. I will not return to plead this again. — MaxEnt 16:34, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Blue-collar pioneers

[Ed: This is actually my continuation from the comment above, but it seemed to need its own heading, so divided out in the same edit.]

As far as Bryan Cantrill goes, whose name I spotted as I scanned the talk page for the general tone of engagement, there is absolutely a category of blue collar pioneers where he properly belongs, along with guys like Walter Bright. The problem with blue collar pioneers is that they are best appreciated from within the trench rather than from above the trench, and you'd never achieve a contained consensus in opening the door to such on a list such as this one. dtrace in my books is pretty close to making the white collar list: it's an entire systems facility for gaining the upper hand on complex concurrent systems, where the dysfunction is embedded in complex interdependencies in the time domain in a way that no other logging facility can usefully twist by the tail.

For a complex, heavily threaded system such as ZFS, even when you have all your guards and interlocks rigorously correct (no mean feat to begin with) they can conspire in unforeseen ways to produce outrageous latency spikes that some reasonable use case simply can't abide.

Lacking a facility as sharp as dtrace, by this point—having merely achieved semantic rigour in data retention—you're dead in the water, short of playing the long game of Whack a Mole, where each effort to eliminate one bizarre latency introduces one or more different bizarre latencies.

So you have a system that's semantically correct, all algorithms and data structures are scale compliant for at least the first six or nine magnitudes, and the code base is thoroughly concurrent over reasonably granular atomic operations. You be done now? No. You still need dtrace to iron out egregious misbehaviour in the latency domain. In my view this is actually a cryptocollar problem. From the nearby access road, it definitely looks like a blue collar problem. Only the further you press into the bush, the whiter it gets.

What to do when everyone else presumes it's a blue problem, but you actually know in your heart of hearts that it's finally a white problem deep when encountered deep in the forest glade? A white paper is not going to cut it with your deluded peers. Far more useful to advance your case is to hand your peers a working proton pack. Make no mistake, dtrace was a magnum opus of the first order in the art form of working proton packs, as you would know if you have ever been close to ground zero to actually notice what it finally buys you. — MaxEnt 16:34, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Philo T. Farnsworth?

I've had difficulty getting Philo T. Farnsworth addition to stick. There's a number of reasons of why he may be ineligible but I believe he belongs on the list, at least as "pioneer of computer displays." In an effort to keep the list more diverse I would accept, and like to also suggest adding Boris Grabovsky and John Logie Baird as "co-pioneers" of the display.

It can for sure be argued that this list is more academic and strictly "computer science" and I would be willing to accept that Farnsworth's contributions are not in that vein. However what drove me to post his addition to the list was the first line of the article:

"This article presents a list of individuals who made transformative breakthroughs in the creation, development and imagining of what computers could do."

Which reminded me of the youtube video of Farnsworth's appearance on 1957 television game show where he talks about about the future of "television" improving the bandwidth and making the display thin like art on a wall with memory and 2k resolution. That video can be found here (this video was my source for my second attempt at adding to list; I thought this was primary and my contribution would stick that time). The first 6 minutes of the video are extremely kitch for 50s TV game show and I think they give Farnsworth lines because I don't believe him when he says he invented TV at 14, so I'm kind of refuting my own source here, but after the contest ends they get more candid about Farnsworth and what he was doing at the time and what he though about the future.

I feel there are perhaps hundreds of other reasons of why Farnsworth would qualify for so many of these "Pioneer's in [technology] lists" and I can imagine the editors of this list may want to keep to strict rules about such things so I put it to you editors, wikipedians: have I shown sufficient evidence for Philo T. Farnsworth inclusion to this list?

StinkPickle4000 (talk) 06:42, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

We actually can't make those interpretations. You have to cite a source that says "Philo T. Farnsworth was a pioneer in computer science". Also the logic of inclusion is off - you are talking about "people who invented something else that got used in computers". That is some other list. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 15:50, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

I get that computers simply just use the display, as many of his inventions were basically what plugged into a computer. In this case I am suggesting the logic of inclusion is: opening in article states its about individuals who imagined what computers could do, in support of this I linked a clip of TV from the 1950's where he suggests 2k tv streaming digital content to be theoretically possible.

Unrelated to this point is there are some people on this list, the ones added most lately chronologically (regarding CGI and 3d graphics), would not likely have been able to be on list if it wasn't for the pioneering work of the display. Which is why I provided the references to his pioneering work on the display and suggest the international inventors of the display as well to increase diversity (although it'd just be 2 more white males).StinkPickle4000 (talk) 19:20, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

We certainly won't find sources calling Farnsworth a computer scientist as his inventions had mostly already shaped the industry before Computer Science was really established. Its the same problem a lot of the historical list members would have. This is why I tend to suggest the broader definition for inclusion to this list that the top of the article provides.StinkPickle4000 (talk) 21:33, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

The system of reordering the table

It says you can press on some arrows to reorganize the table of pioneers. The function doesn't display on mobile.

Can someone correct that for easier viewing in chronological order? 81.235.37.233 (talk) 16:33, 13 December 2021 (UTC)