Computing Rainbow

The Exercise

Dave Thomas led an exercise called "computing rainbow" to emphasize the existing diversity in computing. In this exercise we brainstormed all the interesting and important things in current computing which might have become hidden or ignored "due to middleware."

Results of the Exercise

Dave Thomas and some others at the workshop thought that two related problems we faced were that the currently existing diversity has been marginalized, mostly through inattention and poor education, and that a number of important techniques or knowledge from the past were being lost to academics rather than being carried on by practitioners.

In this exercise we tried to come up with a list of such diversity or nearly lost knowledge. We also talked about a conference or series of conferences that would, to some extent, celebrate these things. Or a book. There was considerably energy associated with this idea, and it is likely Dave will follow up on it.

Here is the entire rainbow: