Comment by blondin

thank you!

was having the same thought as i was going through the examples. and when the unix example came up, it dawn on me that the author is clearly omitting the background of these people to make a more compelling point.

yes they did great feats but most have a history of doing similar and learning from it in the past. fast-forward to present days, and our issues with not going fast enough, maybe the conditions and situations are different? maybe we are in a learning phase?

also for a better account of what happened in unix case, i recommend kernighan's latest: unix: a history and a memoir.