I knew that the name was familiar - I read the book 'The Muse in the Machine' a few years ago when I was doing a philosophy degree.
As I recall, TMITM was very similar to the current article - large on grandious ideas - small on details.
I mean, it's easy to say your 'work is a 3D stream' or something similar - but what does that *actually mean*?
For my money, the reason the desktop analogy has worked is that it works. It's efficient, people understand it. I get really annoyed with people who want to change something just because it's been around for a while - like this 'unix is a relic of the past' thing. Well, yes it is a relic of the past - so is philosophy, art, music, the game of chess. Sometimes, things get better with evolution.
It's easy to see why the idea of newness is appealing in the context of computers - newer hardware is bigger better faster cheaper. Newer software takes advantage of those features and so is bigger better faster cheaper. But not everything which is new/radical/different is inheirently better than what went before it.
Take BSD for example - the reason why it's well regarded from a security point of view is that it's been around long enough to work out the bugs. Linux is getting better the longer it is around too. In this context - age is an advantage.
I am glad that there are people who are thinking about the future and trying to make the world a better / easier place to live in. What concerns me about this current peice of work is that the author espouses a colourful, poetic view of the future - he doesn't explain why this is any better for the user than where we are now (except that the desktop won't resemble an old desk!)
And that's another (final) point - when you use your GUI based computer, do you *really* think to yourself, 'right, now I'm moving this physical bit of paper into this physical folder, and I'll place it here on my literal-desktop'? No - I doubt it. The desktop metaphor was a starting point for the genesis of interface design. But that's all it is - a metaphor. I think todays users have managed to go beyond the metaphor and understand the computer in terms of it's own reality. Ordinary people understand concepts like 'crashing' and 'saving' - which are all properties inheirent in the computer, not a physical desktop. Ergo - the 'desktop' is just a metaphor which users are not constrained by - so rejecting that metaphor is not itself a reason for adopting Gelernter's vision of the future.
A number of people in the linux community have said that free software can take over from proprietory systems - not just on the server, but on the desktop. It is success in that endevour that I am refering to.
I don't mind if Linux doesn't conquer the desktop - I *am* happy to tweak and customise my desktop - but *if* anyone wants a linux desktop to appeal to people outside that audience, then consistency is key. It certainly seems to me when I read what both the KDE and Gnome crowd write, that *they* care about making Linux accessable to a wider audience.
BTW: I do know that Linus does Linux as a hobby, and I didn't suggest that success = financial reward. FYI: I have authored open-source software myself so I'm not totaly 'blind' to what either Linux or open-source are about.
...because if we are then the number one thing that must be resolved is a consistent look and feel for users. Linux will *never* go anywhere on the desktop when one app uses single clicks for something, another uses double clicks, one uses motif l&f another uses redmond. This kind of thing scares users...
Simple, ordinary folk care about consistent (non-scary) desktops... and they are the people who's buy-in you have to get if linux is to make inroads on the desktop.
Having competing standards is fine for uber-hackers who like to mix and match everything they get but uber-hackers shouldn't be who a desktop should be aimed at if you want it to succeed.
Java misses 'features' like templates on purpose it is a concious design decision to make the language simple and maintainable. As you make larger systems, that becomes a major factor. A lot of what sucks about C++ programs often comes down to the STL - and you have the gall to complain about code bloat? (not to mention that it's not OO and that it leads to the worst compiler errors you ever imagined)
C++ is a good language for a lot of things - but the same goes equally for Java - remove the blinkers dude.
re: virtual functions - you ignore them in Java because everything is virtual by default - which is the way it should be in an OO language. C++ only allows you to use polymorphism if you expressly mention it for every function you write. If anything, C++ does not lend itself to OO (default non-virtual functions, templates are generics not OO, you can write C++ programs with no classes at all, etc....)
You've got it wrong!
on
Globalization
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Guys, the reason the US is hated in the middle east is not because the rest of the world hates freedom (sorry Dubbyah) and it's not because the US has lots of modern technology (sorry Katz). It's because US foreign policy has been a kind of terrorism on the middle east.
US funding of Israel and the US habit of vetoing the hundreds of UN resolutions that otherwise would have been passed against Israel have both funded and ligitimised the loss of countless Arab lives.
I would guess that a lot of the rest of the world (I'm a New Zealander BTW) would be unimpressed at other bits of US foreign policy: ignoring the world court when it finds against them (e.g.: bay of pigs), the treatment of Cuba (the Red peril is past, okay?), the unjustified bombing of the pharmaceutecal capabilities of the Sudan (which supplied 90% of the anti-malarial drugs in that country), using trade as a weapon (that why New Zealand was drawn into Vietnam, for example)
I am amazed and saddened by the lack of insight Americans have into the misery caused by American foreign policy. I'm not saying that everything American is bad - far from it, I'm all for the global village and US technology has had a lot to do with making that happen. What I am saying is that Americans should wake up. To say that someone would attack you because they either hate freedom or are jealous of big American cars is either dangerously naive or willfully blind.
Australia and New Zealand are other interesting options as well (I'm a New Zealander)
You trade a little more tax for better health and a lot more personal safety.
Still - I tend to agree with what some people have said in this discussion: it can be disheartening when corporations abuse their powers and governments do little to stop them.
The problem is not that governments dont care - often they and the general populace do not know what issues are occuring in the IT world. The only usefull solution is to go forth and educate.
You can leave for another country (and from my travels in both the first and third worlds I wouldn't live anywhere but NZ and Australia) but ultimately the problems you are avoiding remain - and given the way politics everywhere is becoming more global, you may find that the same issues come back to haunt you.
In essence, I think you should fight rather than run, and a first step in fighting is figuring out how to let other people know what is going wrong (whether it's the DeCSS trial or MIAA or DMCA....)
"They constantly dictate rules to us, set ridiculus trade embargoes, and generally push us around."
That sounds exactly like what the US does to New Zealand. FYI: we have less tariffs and more Free Trade than the US. We take this stance largely on the basis of rhetoric our trading partners (esp. from the US), but it seems the US doesn't play by the same rules.
Wake up and smell the coffee - the US uses it's clout to bully its trading partners too.
I'm disapointed with the/. crowd - whenever something like this comes up, it seems to be a race as to who can come up with the most insulting put down for another culture. Look, I know that this is an odd move from an Internet perspective, but at least try to start from the point of view that world politics is likely to look different from Beijing than it does from Washington. Not everyone thinks the same way.
Some people feel very strongly about cultural artifacts such as languages - some NZ Maori for example. It's not all that crazy to see how someone might leap to a defensive mode on an issue like this without really thinking through the practical ramifications all that well.
Hmmm... I *do* work for a company making the kind of software you're talking about here. FYI we recently had a chance to see a major switch supplier demo their softswitch app - running in *JAVA*. Ok, it sucked, but the point is that softswitch can be done on whatever the hell you like - if a Java app can only handle 10 calls a second it still doesn't matter if it means that you can have an array of 10, 100, 1000 cheapo pcs to handle whatever number of calls your after rather than spend multiple millions of dollars on expensive switching hardware. The only thing that's important is reliability.
I've never understood why software patents are allowed in the first place. As I understood it, you can't patent concepts, only expressions of concepts.
It would seem to me that an algorithm (being a plan to achieve a result) is purely conceptual - the algorithm only being expressed in the specific code that implements the algorithm.
It seems commonsense that algo's shouldn't be patentable, but then I'm not a lawyer and commonsense doesn't seem to apply to that breed.
Slashdot Mirror
As I recall, TMITM was very similar to the current article - large on grandious ideas - small on details.
I mean, it's easy to say your 'work is a 3D stream' or something similar - but what does that *actually mean*?
For my money, the reason the desktop analogy has worked is that it works. It's efficient, people understand it. I get really annoyed with people who want to change something just because it's been around for a while - like this 'unix is a relic of the past' thing. Well, yes it is a relic of the past - so is philosophy, art, music, the game of chess. Sometimes, things get better with evolution.
It's easy to see why the idea of newness is appealing in the context of computers - newer hardware is bigger better faster cheaper. Newer software takes advantage of those features and so is bigger better faster cheaper. But not everything which is new/radical/different is inheirently better than what went before it.
Take BSD for example - the reason why it's well regarded from a security point of view is that it's been around long enough to work out the bugs. Linux is getting better the longer it is around too. In this context - age is an advantage.
I am glad that there are people who are thinking about the future and trying to make the world a better / easier place to live in. What concerns me about this current peice of work is that the author espouses a colourful, poetic view of the future - he doesn't explain why this is any better for the user than where we are now (except that the desktop won't resemble an old desk!)
And that's another (final) point - when you use your GUI based computer, do you *really* think to yourself, 'right, now I'm moving this physical bit of paper into this physical folder, and I'll place it here on my literal-desktop'? No - I doubt it. The desktop metaphor was a starting point for the genesis of interface design. But that's all it is - a metaphor. I think todays users have managed to go beyond the metaphor and understand the computer in terms of it's own reality. Ordinary people understand concepts like 'crashing' and 'saving' - which are all properties inheirent in the computer, not a physical desktop. Ergo - the 'desktop' is just a metaphor which users are not constrained by - so rejecting that metaphor is not itself a reason for adopting Gelernter's vision of the future.
A number of people in the linux community have said that free software can take over from proprietory systems - not just on the server, but on the desktop. It is success in that endevour that I am refering to.
I don't mind if Linux doesn't conquer the desktop - I *am* happy to tweak and customise my desktop - but *if* anyone wants a linux desktop to appeal to people outside that audience, then consistency is key. It certainly seems to me when I read what both the KDE and Gnome crowd write, that *they* care about making Linux accessable to a wider audience.
BTW: I do know that Linus does Linux as a hobby, and I didn't suggest that success = financial reward. FYI: I have authored open-source software myself so I'm not totaly 'blind' to what either Linux or open-source are about.
...because if we are then the number one thing that must be resolved is a consistent look and feel for users. Linux will *never* go anywhere on the desktop when one app uses single clicks for something, another uses double clicks, one uses motif l&f another uses redmond. This kind of thing scares users...
Simple, ordinary folk care about consistent (non-scary) desktops... and they are the people who's buy-in you have to get if linux is to make inroads on the desktop.
Having competing standards is fine for uber-hackers who like to mix and match everything they get but uber-hackers shouldn't be who a desktop should be aimed at if you want it to succeed.
As someone who has been programming for about fifteen years now, and a long time C and C++ user, I have to say that your argument seems, well, crap.
Proprietory != evil. Closed & monopolistic == evil.
Java misses 'features' like templates on purpose it is a concious design decision to make the language simple and maintainable. As you make larger systems, that becomes a major factor. A lot of what sucks about C++ programs often comes down to the STL - and you have the gall to complain about code bloat? (not to mention that it's not OO and that it leads to the worst compiler errors you ever imagined)
C++ is a good language for a lot of things - but the same goes equally for Java - remove the blinkers dude.
re: virtual functions - you ignore them in Java because everything is virtual by default - which is the way it should be in an OO language. C++ only allows you to use polymorphism if you expressly mention it for every function you write. If anything, C++ does not lend itself to OO (default non-virtual functions, templates are generics not OO, you can write C++ programs with no classes at all, etc....)
Guys, the reason the US is hated in the middle east is not because the rest of the world hates freedom (sorry Dubbyah) and it's not because the US has lots of modern technology (sorry Katz). It's because US foreign policy has been a kind of terrorism on the middle east.
US funding of Israel and the US habit of vetoing the hundreds of UN resolutions that otherwise would have been passed against Israel have both funded and ligitimised the loss of countless Arab lives.
I would guess that a lot of the rest of the world (I'm a New Zealander BTW) would be unimpressed at other bits of US foreign policy: ignoring the world court when it finds against them (e.g.: bay of pigs), the treatment of Cuba (the Red peril is past, okay?), the unjustified bombing of the pharmaceutecal capabilities of the Sudan (which supplied 90% of the anti-malarial drugs in that country), using trade as a weapon (that why New Zealand was drawn into Vietnam, for example)
I am amazed and saddened by the lack of insight Americans have into the misery caused by American foreign policy. I'm not saying that everything American is bad - far from it, I'm all for the global village and US technology has had a lot to do with making that happen. What I am saying is that Americans should wake up. To say that someone would attack you because they either hate freedom or are jealous of big American cars is either dangerously naive or willfully blind.
Wake up! Read ZMag for some insight.
Australia and New Zealand are other interesting options as well (I'm a New Zealander)
You trade a little more tax for better health and a lot more personal safety.
Still - I tend to agree with what some people have said in this discussion: it can be disheartening when corporations abuse their powers and governments do little to stop them.
The problem is not that governments dont care - often they and the general populace do not know what issues are occuring in the IT world. The only usefull solution is to go forth and educate.
You can leave for another country (and from my travels in both the first and third worlds I wouldn't live anywhere but NZ and Australia) but ultimately the problems you are avoiding remain - and given the way politics everywhere is becoming more global, you may find that the same issues come back to haunt you.
In essence, I think you should fight rather than run, and a first step in fighting is figuring out how to let other people know what is going wrong (whether it's the DeCSS trial or MIAA or DMCA....)
Your choice.
"They constantly dictate rules to us, set ridiculus trade embargoes, and generally push us around."
That sounds exactly like what the US does to New Zealand. FYI: we have less tariffs and more Free Trade than the US. We take this stance largely on the basis of rhetoric our trading partners (esp. from the US), but it seems the US doesn't play by the same rules.
Wake up and smell the coffee - the US uses it's clout to bully its trading partners too.
I'm disapointed with the /. crowd - whenever something like this comes up, it seems to be a race as to who can come up with the most insulting put down for another culture. Look, I know that this is an odd move from an Internet perspective, but at least try to start from the point of view that world politics is likely to look different from Beijing than it does from Washington. Not everyone thinks the same way.
Some people feel very strongly about cultural artifacts such as languages - some NZ Maori for example. It's not all that crazy to see how someone might leap to a defensive mode on an issue like this without really thinking through the practical ramifications all that well.
Hmmm... I *do* work for a company making the kind of software you're talking about here. FYI we recently had a chance to see a major switch supplier demo their softswitch app - running in *JAVA*. Ok, it sucked, but the point is that softswitch can be done on whatever the hell you like - if a Java app can only handle 10 calls a second it still doesn't matter if it means that you can have an array of 10, 100, 1000 cheapo pcs to handle whatever number of calls your after rather than spend multiple millions of dollars on expensive switching hardware. The only thing that's important is reliability.
when you encourage a world in which artificial legal barriers get thrown in the way of progress.
I have no sympathy for them.
I've never understood why software patents are allowed in the first place. As I understood it, you can't patent concepts, only expressions of concepts.
It would seem to me that an algorithm (being a plan to achieve a result) is purely conceptual - the algorithm only being expressed in the specific code that implements the algorithm.
It seems commonsense that algo's shouldn't be patentable, but then I'm not a lawyer and commonsense doesn't seem to apply to that breed.