Ok. I have to rise to this :-)
Tomasz Rola wrote:
On Sun, 15 Jul 2012, Miles Fidelman wrote:
I keep coming back to the notion that transparent tools are really
important - there's something about impedance matching between what
we're trying to do and the tools we use. All too often, computer tools
seem to make things harder, not easier - word processors make it easier
to write,
Well, I can agree word processor makes it easy to write "something". But
if I ever intended a long term relation with my text, like writing a book
(and later, maybe, revise or update it over years) - WPs are out of
equation for me. I would use LaTeX on some baretext editor (emacs, even
vim would do the job). True, it is not "oozerfriendly" (because there is
no place on it to put such sticker) and to start using it requires reading
at least portions of the manual (in my case, the portions totaled were
about a size of "printer test" magazine article - is it really that big?).
On the bright side, it retains compatibility with itself, it renders text
the same over the years (I expect it does - last time I checked it
rendered my master thesis the same after 13 years) and doesn't give me
nasty surprises (I don't expect it would). For example, a fancy bug where
old versions of text are retained in a doc file (_after_ one _erases_
them) is nonexistent in tex, unless I explicitely put it there (say, in
comments). And of course it is much easier to work with structured texts
(i.e. once I make chapters, paragraphs, tables and the like, they stay
there until the data gets corrupted or Universe ends or something like
this).
See, I'm an engineer, but I write a LOT for a living - proposals,
papers, presentations, etc. When I'm trying to think through a logical
presentation of information, a good outliner helps a lot. Worrying about
formatting codes just gets in the way - it's a distraction. If I'm
co-authoring, then commenting tools help a lot.
The point is getting ideas across. The tools are just there to help,
not get in the way.
So, if you mean "easy now", sure, all kind of transparent tools are cool.
OTOH if you mean "easy integrated over time" - the cool can all to fast
become "cool like hell". And I would rather do it my own uncool and uneasy
way (which somehow turns out to be cooler and easier, once we include more
factors into equation, factors the unexperienced has no idea about - but
the real surprise is a number of unexperienced among profs).
By "easy now" I mean tools that help frame, encapsulate, and communicate
ideas. Different kinds of ideas take different forms, and demand
different kinds of tools.
If I would have to point at guilty, the "current sorry state of personal
computing" has been caused by making things too easy for novice, without
accounting for needs of seasoned users. We are novices only once, after
that we are not anymore. The "hardness" you write about is, from my POV,
just dumbing down the tool, so one has to use dumber and dumber ways of
working with it. No surprise it gets hard as one's experience rises.
The original topic started with:
"45 years after Engelbart's demo, we have a read-only web and Microsoft
Word 2011, a gulf between "users" and "programmers" that can't be wider,
and the scariest part is that most people have been indoctrinated long
enough to realize there could be alternatives."
"Naturally, this is just history repeating itself (a la pre-Gutenberg
scribes, Victorian plumbers). But my question is, what can we learn from
these historical precedences, in order to to consciously to design our
escape path. A revolution? An evolution? An education?"
And seems to have turned into something about needing to recreate the
homebrew computing milieu, and everyone learning to program - and
perhaps "why don't more people know how to program?"
My response (to the original question) is that folks who want to write,
may want something more flexible (programmable) than Word, but somehow
turning everone into c coders doesn't seem to be the answer. More
flexible tools (e.g., HyperCard, spreadsheets) are more of an answer -
and that's a challenge to those of us who develop tools. Turning
writers, or mathematicians, or artists into coders is simply a recipe
for bad content AND bad code.
Another reason is giving up better ways of doing stuff where there is
short term incentive. I'm not sure when longterm stopped being part of the
plan, but once it did, no amount of marketing is going to help.
but drawing programs are not really an improvement over paper and pencil
until we get to things like animation, and do we really don't want to
have to write a c program to write an essay or draw a picture?
Oh wait a little. All I want is e-paper based tablet...
Personally, I find a Nook is a lot better way to read a book than a
laptop. And if I want to draw something, I'd LOVE an e-paper based
tablet with a pen (what ever happened to pentops, by the way?).
So I kind of wonder if part of the underlying issue is a mismatch between
"something interesting to say" and the tools we have available.
The tools "we" have. They are not used because there is no marketing and
hype about them. They are overally uncool, because they do the job without
blinking transparent windows and colored 3d cubes spining. And they insist
that user _learns_ to use them.
On the other hand, if there is only one shelf with dumbed down tools
available for "end user", there is not much to be done with it. If you
have "little carpenter" toolbox, with toy hammers, saws and nails, you can
mostly do toy chairs with them, expecting more would be inapropriate.
I'll come back to saying there's a middle ground. Spreadsheets are
really a good example - the number of things people do with spreadsheet
and macros is pretty phenomenal - and it is coding, with powerful tools,
not a "little carpenter" toolbox. Nor is Macsyma a toy - it's a
powerful language for expressing mathematical thought.
--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra
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