The Most Important Software Innovations

This paper by David A. Wheeler identifies the most important software innovations throughout history, deliberately excluding hardware advances, product integrations, and social/legal inventions. It establishes strict criteria: an innovation must be widely used, critically important, and represent a genuine technological advance in how computers are programmed. The paper distinguishes software innovations from commonly confused factors like increasing hardware speed, and excludes items such as Ethernet, transistors, and copyleft licensing.