Butler Lampson
Microsoft
People have been inventing new ideas in computer systems for
nearly four decades, usually driven by Moore’s law. Many of them have been
spectacularly successful: virtual memory, packet networks, objects, relational
databases, and graphical user interfaces are a few examples. Other promising
ideas have not worked out: capabilities, formal methods, distributed computing,
and persistent objects. And the fate of some is still in doubt: parallel
computing, RISC, and software reuse. The most important invention of the last
decade, the World Wide Web, was not made by computer systems researchers. In
the light of all this experience, I will talk about the topics that I think
will be exciting to work on in the next few years.