On historical ignorance in tech

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

– Ecclesiastes 1:9, New International Version

I read Uwe Friedrichsen's post about continuous amnesia and it makes an import point that we kind of all know: the world of software development is ahistorical.

The post offers up some ideas on why software development never seems to learn anything, but misses the key fact that programming is a pop culture. This is something Alan Kay expressed in 2011 and it has been talked about more than a few times since then. Pop culture is by its very nature anti-history because historical precedent pokes holes in novelty. It turns out that "there's nothing new under the sun" is truer than we care to admit.

It's so true, in fact, that we actively seek to deny it. That's the job of marketing.

I think the bible verse above needs to be explored a bit.

• We are conditioned to think that newness is always better because the past is meaningless. The only things there are cute things because "look how primitive they are".

Business is the driver of software practices, not some notion of building a discipline. We might keep thinking that "we're just starting out" but the reason we get no traction and we keep saying that we're a new field is that we make no effort to start it. Instead, we look to the next quarter and how we can increase revenue.

Business does not place value on historical analysis because it does not do much to increase shareholder value.

As long as software development continues to concern itself with sales and popularity, it will not be a discipline.

Maybe we are trying so hard to escape the lack of newness that if there is any chance of something being new, we jump at it in the hopes it will break the cycle.