Ieee Software's "on Computing" With Grady Booch

Grady Booch peers behind the curtain of computing into the mystery behind software-intensive systems. To some, such systems look like magic; to most, the inner workings are irrelevant insofar that they simply work. To those of us behind the curtain, however, we know that such systems are filled with chaos, regularity, and beauty.

On the one hand, we seek to build software-intensive systems that are innovative, elegant, and supremely useful. On the other hand, computing technology as a thing unto itself is not the place of enduring value, and therefore, as computing fills the spaces of our world, it becomes boring. And that’s a very good and desirable thing.

The subject of the computability of the mind introduces complex philosophical, ethical, and technical issues. That aside, this topic draws us in to the nature of algorithms. We are surrounded by algorithms; much of the history of computing is also the history of the advance of algorithms. For the public, algorithms are part of computing’s self-made mystery, but to understand their nature is an important part of computational thinking.

Computing is transforming every aspect of the human experience. As creators of this technology, what obligations do we have to the general public, for whom we make the complex machinery of computing increasingly invisible?

Computing was once a companion to conflict; computing is now an instrument of war; computing is becoming a theater of war. Along the way, conflict has shaped computing, and computing has changed the nature of warfare.

Computing has transformed humanity in ways that we have only begun to metabolize. Computing amplifies what we celebrate most about being human, but it also has the capacity to magnify that which we mourn. Exploring the story of computing has value, for an educated populace is far more able to reconcile its past, reason about its present, and be intentional about its future.

Grady Booch introduces listeners of On Architecture to his new podcast, On Computing.