I read a lot of history (as you no doubt notice from my other editorials). I’m currently reading an excellent book on the air war in World War One, Marked for Death: The First War in the Air. One of the fascinating aspects of the war is just how fast the technology shifted. At the start of the war airplanes were so underpowered that in a stiff breeze they would literally stand still in the air. By the end of the war they were travelling at nearly 200 miles per hour in a dive. Technology moved that fast.
On the one hand, I feel like technology just doesn’t move all that quickly any more. After all, we’re still using relational databases. That theory was worked out fifty years ago. On the other hand, you absolutely get a sense of being one of those early pilots. Think back on technology only 10 years ago. We were still arguing over whether or not virtual machines were viable as a mechanism for managing our data. Today, not only is almost everything virtualized, we’re working with containers and Platform as a Service offerings.
You really get the sense that, like those early pilots and aircraft manufacturers, not only are we just starting to figure out what to do with the machines we’re building, we’re also just starting to figure out the rules and implications of those machines. In World War One, the airplanes went from a novelty for some, possibly a useful scouting mechanism, but overall, not that important, to an absolutely vital part of the strategy to where establishing air superiority at the start of an offensive was the make or break for that offensive. We’re in the same place today where we have to establish exactly what and where we build our systems as a fundamental aspect of ensuring that those systems are successful.
It’s an exciting time to be a technologist.