Foreword
Before writing this article, I wrote about the history of some big data components and some of its evaluations intermittently, but I felt unsatisfactory. History should be continuous and have its inherent laws, so I wanted to write an article to summarize the big data. The history of the development of data technology, sort out its context, and try to find out its internal laws, and share it with everyone.
In the big data community in China, most developers focus on how to use a certain technology. Going a little deeper is the analysis of the technology’s architecture. As for how this technology was born and what problems it solves, almost no people care. In a sense, this trend is also true, after all, most engineers in most companies do more of a certain job. To be more precise is to better complete a certain job, and the corresponding learning of technology is the learning of the use of technology and its structure. But I think this is far from enough, because the birth of a certain technology must encounter some problems before developers want to research and create this technology.
In addition, the development of technology does not necessarily choose the right direction at the beginning, but leaves its name in history after continuous market competition and elimination. After all, there are only a few technologies that leave their names, and most of them are submerged in the dust of history.
Gossip less, let us go back to the beginning of the birth of big data technology, which is also the "pastoral time" at the beginning of the computer.
Before Big Data
Looking back on the early days of computer development, it should be a wonderful era. At that time, programmers were not yet called "code farmers", but were still "scientists" and were at the forefront of technological development. Just as many ancient Chinese philosophers longed for the "pastoral era", programmers sometimes fantasize about going back to that era, hand-handling an operating system or database, or writing a hand-written implementation for the TCP/IP protocol.
For individual programmers, being able to write a database, operating system, or programming language is naturally a wonderful thing, but it is a very painful thing for the entire technology development. Think about it, if every programmer is thinking about building a database, operating system or programming language, these systems and components are basically the same in terms of function. For example, the core function of a database is to store and search data. No matter how fancy it is, databases are still for storing and searching data.
Therefore, for the overall technology development trend, it is enough to build systems and components such as databases, operating systems, or programming, and then everyone can carry out secondary development based on these already built wheels.
But looking back at history now, without such a group of people, it would be difficult for personal computers to develop.
As "A Brief History of Computers" said: the development of personal computers is "the achievement of geeks--young amateur technical enthusiasts, with their persistent pursuit and technical ingenuity, have accomplished what the so-called experts think is impossible."
We can't ignore the amazing talents of the programmers just because the current programmers have become "code farmers".