[squeak-dev] The Old Man

Jecel Assumpcao Jr jecel at merlintec.com
Mon Mar 31 18:55:22 UTC 2008


Andres,
> 
> Perhaps what made it more difficult is that Mr. Babbage appears to have 
> had no close partners in his work?  For example, could we say something 
> of value about Leibniz and his automaton, had we casually met him in the 
> 1600s?

Indeed, I had actually written something about that but then erased it
to keep my reply more focused. His most famous partner, Ada, was
sufficiently like him that it didn't help things very much. You need a
very different kind of personality to get results. That is why
successful one person startups are so rare.

Another issue that leads to projects like this is intermittent funding.
Sometimes there is a enough for progress, sometimes all work stops and
you can only talk/write about it. See Ted Nelson's Xanadu for another
example.

-- Jecel



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