Jan Wildeboer 😷Feb 24

I am so old, I actually learned how to program software agents in JAVA back in 1994 as part of my computer science studies. At the time it was supposed to be the future of IT. Software agents would roam the internet for the best deals and report back to me with "job done".

So forgive my "deja vu" reaction when I now hear the same story again, with the main difference being that a deterministic computer language has been replaced with a non-deterministic autocorrect ;)

#SarcasmButOnlyHalf

Show threadKrisBuytaertFeb 24
@jwildeboer that would be really awesome as Java only popped up in late 1995 iirc
Show threadJan Wildeboer 😷
@krisbuytaert It started in 1991 and was originally called Oak. At our university, which was filled with SUN hardware, we got early access and worked with it long before the official release as JAVA in 1996. Remember, Oak/Java was planned for interactive television stuff, so hunting for teleshopping deals was one idea. Which we used as template for agentic approaches. Fun times :)
Feb 24 at 7:21amWeb
Show threadKrisBuytaertFeb 24
@jwildeboer must have been the same era that I has a summer job hacking perl to scrape websites to build a database to be used as input for "Collaborative Filtering" , does that give us both 30+ years of experience with "AI" ?
Show threadKirtai 🏳️‍⚧️Feb 24
@jwildeboer @krisbuytaert
I am still bitter that Sun didn't get to use Smalltalk like they wanted due to licencing bullshit and had to make Java instead...
Show threadAslak RaanesFeb 24
@kirtai @jwildeboer @krisbuytaert They had Self https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_(programming_language)
Self (programming language) - Wikipedia

Show threadKirtai 🏳️‍⚧️Feb 24
@aslakr @jwildeboer @krisbuytaert
I know, however Sun also tried to licence Smalltalk but the Smalltalk companies were asshats about per-seat licencing and so on.