We often take for granted the technology we have and forget that it’s the result of a tedious evolutionary process.
A Railroad Track is the Width of Two Horses is one of the first stories about the evolution of technology that I remember reading, maybe ten years ago. It rings more like a colorful story than a true historic account, but it nevertheless left an impression on me.
Later, doing research gave me a bette appreciation how of ideas evolve, cross-polinate and morph over time. True hindsights are rare. It’s a lot about tweaking existing ideas until the right form that works is found.
Here are some of the most engaging stories about technology history that I’ve read:
- The story of IPv6
- The story of the Agent String
- The story of CSS
- The story of vim
- The story of /bin/true
- The story of email
Oh boy, innovation is so a messy process.
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