Software Repositories: The New Library of Alexandria

People usually treat historical artifacts with respect. To be completely frank, with my Greek heritage, it is one thing that I learned, from the time I remember myself.

People like Herodotus and Plutarch are still studied very carefully to shed light in several parts of the human history. I am pretty sure, that in our days, there is abundance of documentation regarding current modern events and I hope that all these (or at least the most significant works) will remain available for all the future generations.

To my awe, recently I stumped on this wikipedia page. This algorithm was first found (or at least got popular) in the source code of Quake III: Arena, when it was open-sourced by the id software. Initially, John Carmack was named as its creator, but further investigation led to William Kahan and K. C. Ng as the brains behind it.

And the real question that arise is, “How many hidden gems are lying around undiscovered?”.

Who knows, services like Github may be the archeological dig-sites of the modern age.

Update: Happy to see I am not the only one.

Disclaimer: The photo was originally posted on the twitter account of Paris Avgeriou.