The context I was referring to was the era soon after the Einstein-Bohr debates culminating in the Copenhagen interpretation of QM. This was an uneasy truce and the attitude at the time was "shut up and calculate" -- meaning shut up about the philosophic meaning and contradictions of the fundamental theories of physics and just apply them or flesh out the implications. This was fine until the late sixties when cosmology and black holes forced the issue of reconciling GR and QM, of which String Theory is one avenue taken.

Personally, I think String Theory is a dead-end. However in my original comment when I wrote that the current theories are incompatible "as formulated", I leave open the possibility that a mathematical reformulation, such as String Theory, may resolve the issues.

Personally, I think the problem will be solved by a new conceptual approach, on the order of Einstein redefining the meaning of space and time. I also think that it will come from someone outside of or on the fringes of mainstream physics, such as Julian Barbour or someone, like Einstein, just starting their career with nothing to lose on taking on such a grand challenge with no guarantee of success.

"Personally, I think the problem will be solved by a new conceptual approach,"

As a computer scientist, I have to admit to being partial to more discrete theories like loop quantum gravity. But whereas I'm willing to stick my nose into some science's business and declare they're all Doing It Wrong, this is not one of them. String theory is often criticized for having a lot of predictions and not much evidence, but I think that to be fair, that's true of all the competition, too. There just isn't enough evidence right now.

I think it's likely that relativity and quantum mechanics will be reconciled by an information-centric theory--which could easily come out of computer science.

We call some patterns of energy "information" (like an algorithm) and other patterns of energy "matter" (like a proton). It seems to me that the recent mathematical study of information could be extended to cover matter as well.

Information theory is also a much younger branch of study than physics, which would seem to indicate a longer runway for fundamental discoveries and applications.