diff --git a/content/post/2016-08-swc-archaeology.md b/content/post/2016-08-swc-archaeology.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e03e219 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/post/2016-08-swc-archaeology.md @@ -0,0 +1,54 @@ +--- +title: 'What happened to the original Software Carpentry?' +description: | + Before @softwarecarpentry, there was Software Carpentry. + What happened to it? +slug: swc-the-competition +date: 2016-08-16T18:03:13+01:00 +draft: false +type: post +tags: +- Software Carpentry +- Web archaeology +- Technology +--- + +> "Software Carpentry was originally a competition to design new software tools, +> not a training course. +> The fact that you didn't know that tells you how well it worked." + +When I read this in a [recent post on Greg Wilson's blog][gvwilson blog], +I took it as a challenge. +I actually do remember the competition, +although looking at the dates it was long over by the time I found it. + +I believe it did have impact; +in fact, I still occasionally use one of the tools it produced, +so Greg's comment got me thinking: +what happened to the other competition entries? + +Working out what happened will need a bit of digging, +as most of the relevant information +is now [only available on the Internet Archive][SWC Archive]. +It certainly seems that by November 2008 +the domain name had been allowed to lapse +and had been replaced with a holding page by the registrar. + +There were four categories in the competition, +each representing a category of tool +that the organisers thought could be improved: + +- SC Build: a build tool to replace [make][] +- SC Conf: a configuration management tool to replace [autoconf][] and [automake][] +- SC Track: a bug tracking tool +- SC Test: an easy to use testing framework + +I'm hoping to be able to show that this work +had a lot more impact than Greg is admitting here. +I'll keep you posted on what I find! + +[gvwilson blog]: http://third-bit.com/2015/12/06/just-keep-swimming.html +[SWC Archive]: https://web.archive.org/web/20071014042716/http://software-carpentry.com/index.html +[make]: https://www.gnu.org/software/make/ +[autoconf]: https://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/autoconf.html +[automake]: https://www.gnu.org/software/automake/