Histories of Computing / / Michael Sean Mahoney; ed. by Thomas Haigh.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter HUP eBook Package Archive 1893-1999
• VerfasserIn: Mahoney, Michael Sean,
• MitwirkendeR: Buchwald, Jed Z.,; Burnett, D. Graham,; Haigh, Thomas,
• HerausgeberIn: Haigh, Thomas,
• Place / Publishing House: Cambridge, MA : : Harvard University Press, , [2011]; ©2011
• Year of Publication: 2011
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (260 p.)

Computer technology is pervasive in the modern world, its role ever more important as it becomes embedded in a myriad of physical systems and disciplinary ways of thinking. The late Michael Sean Mahoney was a pioneer scholar of the history of computing, one of the first established historians of science to take seriously the challenges and opportunities posed by information technology to our understanding of the twentieth century. Mahoney’s work ranged widely, from logic and the theory of computation to the development of software and applications as craft-work. But it was always informed by a unique perspective derived from his distinguished work on the history of medieval mathematics and experimental practice during the Scientific Revolution. His writings offered a new angle on very recent events and ideas and bridged the gaps between academic historians and computer scientists. Indeed, he came to believe that the field was irreducibly pluralistic and that there could be only histories of computing. In this collection, Thomas Haigh presents thirteen of Mahoney’s essays and papers organized across three categories: historiography, software engineering, and theoretical computer science. His introduction surveys Mahoney’s work to trace the development of key themes, illuminate connections among different areas of his research, and put his contributions into context. The volume also includes an essay on Mahoney by his former students Jed Z. Buchwald and D. Graham Burnett. The result is a landmark work, of interest to computer professionals as well as historians of technology and science.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Figures -- Unexpected Connections, Powerful Precedents, and Big Questions: The Work of Michael Sean Mahoney on the History of Computing -- PART ONE Shaping the History of Computing -- 1 The History of Computing in the History of Technology -- 2 What Makes History? -- 3 Issues in the History of Computing -- 4 The Histories of Computing(s) -- PART TWO Constructing a History for Software -- 5 Software: The Self- Programming Machine -- 6 Extracts from The Roots of Software Engineering -- 7 Finding a History for Software Engineering -- 8 Boys’ Toys and Women’s Work: Feminism Engages Software -- PART THREE The Structures of Computation -- 9 Computing and Mathematics at Prince ton in the 1950s -- 10 Computer Science: The Search for a Mathematical Theory -- 11 Extracts from Computers and Mathematics: The Search for a Discipline of Computer Science -- 12 The Structures of Computation and the Mathematical Structure of Nature -- 13 Extracts from Software as Science— Science as Software -- Éloge: Michael Sean Mahoney, 1939– 2008 -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index