I see computer as more an aid to my brain. Computer has become more a kind of storage and communication device. Storage is still aiding the brain but not aiding the creative part. It is not using the potential of computers.
Alan is talking about using computers to do creative things, using computers to give form to your imaginations. Programming allows you to create things, change things, let them work the way you like, to see different conditions. This power has not been given to normal users.
kind of applications:
Particularly the web where you simply read the information, don't think about changing it, improving it has lagged in this (things like slashdot, wikipedia use to some extent the collaborative potential, again they are only text oriented and cannot be changed in ways beyond editing the text, I may like the text to move around), creating new kinds of virtual worlds (not just simple text documents), collaborating on preparing these kinds of worlds, allowing users to create random situations/worlds or situations/worlds based on inputs (what if analysis, not just on a few variables but talking of complicated situations) and these are supposed to be usable to a common user for playing or for business use or education or any other thing. It is not being done today.
kind of interfaces:
The interfaces have to be built giving people to experiment/play around which is not being done currently.
kind of information the user needs for using interfaces:
The basic infrastructure for such new applications can come from the information domain side bringing computers closer in thinking to humans making the interactions even more productive. When we are at a stage in computer science where computers have general knowledge of domains people can build and play with scenarios, worlds knowing only about their domain information and not worrying about databases and files.
xml is useful for specifying semi-structured data. It has semantics with data, so it is good for maching processing. These 2 properties make it suitable for specifying standards of communication between 2 programs or modules (can be ERP programs (Business processing markup Language or whatever is the standard), can be e-learning programs (SCORM, Sharable Content Object Resource Model)). The standard is more important than representation (xml). If u have one representation (xml), easy to reuse tools across applications. You may use xml to represent say programming libraries. Say along with SCORM which specifies data format, I will have standard operations on e-learning content in a library or package. Advantage, can be processed by machines easily, can have conversion from xml library to programming language, making different programming languages work together, disadvantage, difficult to have flow in XML. Again, having the library standard is the difficult and important part, representation in xml or any other format is fine.
I am from India. I have a friend who wants to work on open source. He at present can't afford to work without salary. He can take up projects of significance to ordinary people like rural education which larger companies would not (may not be of interest commercially). What do you think can be done in such cases.
There are a few ways that I know of
1. Non government non profit organizations starting such projects, funding by donations (there are already such organizations, are FSF, Gnu of this category, please let me know)
2. Universities starting such projects, funding comes from university, govt., from donations, from private companies. (this is very common, even university I graduated, International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad has centre for rural education, centre for Power, centre for open software, etc. for addressing problems of common man)
3. Government departments starting projects relevant to them, education department sponsoring projects in education (I think this also happens, but usually in collaboration with others)
4. The suggestion given here, to pay a few open source developers (don't know if it happens somewhere). This is also fine as long as it is not made into a bureaucratic department for open software and projects are prevented to start by red tapism.
Slashdot Mirror
I see computer as more an aid to my brain.
Computer has become more a kind of storage and
communication device. Storage is still aiding
the brain but not aiding the creative part.
It is not using the potential of computers.
Alan is talking about using computers to do creative things, using computers to give form to your imaginations. Programming allows you to create things, change things, let them work the way you like, to see different conditions.
This power has not been given to normal users.
kind of applications:
Particularly the web where you simply read the information, don't think about changing it, improving it has lagged in this (things like slashdot, wikipedia use to some extent the collaborative potential, again they are only text oriented and cannot be changed in ways beyond editing the text, I may like the text to move around), creating new kinds of virtual worlds (not just simple text documents), collaborating on preparing these kinds of worlds, allowing users to create random situations/worlds or situations/worlds based on inputs (what if analysis, not just on a few variables but talking of complicated situations) and these are supposed to be usable to a common user for playing or for business use or education or any other thing. It is not being done today.
kind of interfaces:
The interfaces have to be built giving people to experiment/play around which is not being done currently.
kind of information the user needs for using interfaces:
The basic infrastructure for such new applications can come from the information domain side bringing computers closer in thinking to humans making the interactions even more productive.
When we are at a stage in computer science where computers have general knowledge of domains people can build and play with scenarios, worlds knowing only about their domain information and not worrying about databases and files.
you know of any good headphones in 10 $ price range thanks
xml is useful for specifying semi-structured data.
It has semantics with data, so it is good for maching processing. These 2 properties make it suitable for specifying standards of communication between 2 programs or modules (can be ERP programs (Business processing markup Language or whatever is the standard), can be e-learning programs (SCORM, Sharable Content Object Resource Model)).
The standard is more important than representation (xml). If u have one representation (xml), easy to reuse tools across applications.
You may use xml to represent say programming libraries. Say along with SCORM which specifies data format, I will have standard operations on e-learning content in a library or package.
Advantage, can be processed by machines easily,
can have conversion from xml library to programming language, making different programming languages work together,
disadvantage, difficult to have flow in XML.
Again, having the library standard is the difficult and important part, representation in xml or any other format is fine.
I am from India. I have a friend who wants to work on open source. He at present can't afford to work without salary. He can take up projects of significance to ordinary people like rural education which larger companies would not (may not be of interest commercially). What do you think can be done in such cases. There are a few ways that I know of 1. Non government non profit organizations starting such projects, funding by donations (there are already such organizations, are FSF, Gnu of this category, please let me know) 2. Universities starting such projects, funding comes from university, govt., from donations, from private companies. (this is very common, even university I graduated, International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad has centre for rural education, centre for Power, centre for open software, etc. for addressing problems of common man) 3. Government departments starting projects relevant to them, education department sponsoring projects in education (I think this also happens, but usually in collaboration with others) 4. The suggestion given here, to pay a few open source developers (don't know if it happens somewhere). This is also fine as long as it is not made into a bureaucratic department for open software and projects are prevented to start by red tapism.