Larry Tesler modeless text editing

They call Larry Tesler the inventor of copy-paste, when in reality his lasting contribution was modeless editing (syntax 'object before verb'). The same functionality was present in earlier software, albeit in a perceivably clumsy way now that we have fast computers and GUIs.

People love their heroes, "inventors". They adore Tim Berners-Lee, "inventor of the Internet" (really: the Web) whose work made the Internet popular. Tim never invented hypertext but he insisted on the idea to apply it to networked computers.

Inventors rarely invent things alone in a vacuum. All new work is based on earlier innovations and achievements. Usually, the inventor who gets the credit is the person who had the clear moment to put the bits together in a different order and make something new out of the mess and cut through red tape. Inventors are persuaders.