61–70 of 297 posts
This isn't the first time Alan Kay express his view on HTML / CSS and Javascitpt. But what alternative do we have / had?
Of course he's also spent 50 years trying to implement his vision of the web and failing [0] so there's that.
This isn't the first time Alan Kay express his view on HTML / CSS and Javascitpt. But what alternative do we have / had?
That's the problem here, actually, but not in the way you think. There are alternatives (Canvas, SVG, etc.) but they're not as good for the standard use case of coming up with something quick that fulfills the business requirement. And then we need to recognize that that stack is a fucking abomination that should be burned with fire. It should so deeply embarrass us, that we wouldn't want to admit that we use it in p…
This isn't the first time Alan Kay express his view on HTML / CSS and Javascitpt. But what alternative do we have / had?
That's the problem here, actually, but not in the way you think. There are alternatives (Canvas, SVG, etc.) but they're not as good for the standard use case of coming up with something quick that fulfills the business requirement. And then we need to recognize that that stack is a fucking abomination that should be burned with fire. It should so deeply embarrass us, that we wouldn't want to admit that we use it in p…
It was in effect Netscape that tried to turn it into an UI as a way to get into the office network market. This riled up Microsoft, and the rest is history.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is terrible though. It is worth stating the obvious fact once in a while. This organic design of the web stack with layer upon layer upon layer upon layer can't go on for forever. At some point it will just become too painful and an alternative will emerge.
The web platform has its virtues though. I can still load a webpage made in 1996 and at least read the text if nothing else; we can't say the same of erstwhile competitors like Flash, Silverlight, Java applets...
but try loading various present day pages without JS enabled.
Many of produce just a white screen unless you turn on JS for 3+ external domains to the one you are trying to read.
And once those load, you often find half the screen filled with persistent headers and footers.
In effect Flash didn't go way, it was just turn into JS+CSS.
And in large part i fear we get this because the people in charge are hell bent on recreating printed media in electronic form.
If, like Alan Kay, you think we need a major overhaul in software construction and are in the San Francisco Bay Area, let me know. I'm part of a group that meets on Saturdays once a month and we work on side research projects toward that end. My email is in my profile.
If anyone in the Boston area is interested in whiteboarding high-skill software development environments in the context of 2018/2019 hardware, I'd be interested. So: continuous speech recognition; hand tracking, controllers, and haptic exoskeletons, but still keyboards; HMDs with 30+ px/deg, and eye tracking, but still screens. Dynabook was a nice vision. As always, society executed poorly, and failed to realize much…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The basic problem there is that no company in the industry, from Apple all the way to the lowliest gray box manufacturer in China is not interested in that. OLPC tried, it got hoodwinked by Microsoft et al. Mozilla tried, FirefoxOS bombed. Hell even Linux is turning ever more complex an opaque year by year. Simple thing is that such flexibility self support do not sell widgets and support contracts, and thus company…
Well, yeah. For the benefits to be realized you need a society that values that sort of thing. It will look quite a bit different from our society, just like societies with writing are completely different from entirely oral societies -- something else Kay touches on.
I have total respect for Alan Kay but I hope he stops criticizing other people and actually shows his vision through his own execution (and by execution I don't just mean invention of a prototype but actual productization and distribution) If you're building something visionary and are not the one who's making tons of money off of it, you have two solutions: 1. IF you're interested in making money: Try to figure out…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The web platform has its virtues though. I can still load a webpage made in 1996 and at least read the text if nothing else; we can't say the same of erstwhile competitors like Flash, Silverlight, Java applets...
Perhaps. but try loading various present day pages without JS enabled. Many of produce just a white screen unless you turn on JS for 3+ external domains to the one you are trying to read. And once those load, you often find half the screen filled with persistent headers and footers. In effect Flash didn't go way, it was just turn into JS+CSS. And in large part i fear we get this because the people in charge are hell…
I agree with the rest of what you said but those are just design decisions. My point was that, regardless of the code headaches, the platform itself (HTML, CSS, JS) is an incredibly flexible and resilient system.
I have total respect for Alan Kay but I hope he stops criticizing other people and actually shows his vision through his own execution (and by execution I don't just mean invention of a prototype but actual productization and distribution) If you're building something visionary and are not the one who's making tons of money off of it, you have two solutions: 1. IF you're interested in making money: Try to figure out…
So, the STEPS project I mentioned above¹ doesn't count? Bret Victor's work wouldn't count? That's incredibly short sighted.
You seem to have missed the part where it's really really hard to be successful with unnatural stuff, even when that stuff is unbelievably useful and valuable. Writing is unnatural, and took a long time to spread. It's still not there yet, and with the television and YouTube, we're actually reverting back a little bit.
Computing is even less natural, so instead of a Victor-esque interactive wonder, we got the caveman interface, where you point and you grunt².
Speaking of badmouthing, my heart breaks every time someone implies that recent Apple devices are cool. They're dystopian demons that seduced people into giving into thinking digital prisons are cool. The Apple ][ was cool. The iPad is crap (it could be cool, with the right OS).
I have total respect for Alan Kay but I hope he stops criticizing other people and actually shows his vision through his own execution (and by execution I don't just mean invention of a prototype but actual productization and distribution) If you're building something visionary and are not the one who's making tons of money off of it, you have two solutions: 1. IF you're interested in making money: Try to figure out…
> (and by execution I don't just mean invention of a prototype but actual productization and distribution) So, the STEPS project I mentioned above¹ doesn't count? Bret Victor's work wouldn't count? That's incredibly short sighted. You seem to have missed the part where it's really really hard to be successful with unnatural stuff, even when that stuff is unbelievably useful and valuable. Writing is unnatural, and too…
It is incredibly short sighted to make an assumption about what I said and criticize on that wrong assumption. There's a term for this logical fallacy but i forget.
Anyway, there's a huge difference between coming up with an idea/prototype and turning it into a product that's meant for mainstream usage. You would only know this if you have actually built something that's meant for mainstream usage so if you don't get this it's fine, but try doing that next time and you'll realize that's true.
What I'm criticizing is his comments on Apple's implementation decisions on things like the stylus. There are plenty of reasons why they decided to go that way, and I totally understand if this criticism was coming from some ignorant journalist who hasn't built anything (because they're ignorant), but Alan Kay should know better. There are way more things to consider than just ideals when you're building a real product.
This is probably why Xerox Parc built so many innovative prototypes but most of them were commercialized by other companies. If they had people like Steve Jobs instead, Xerox would be Apple by now.
If you think I'm being overly critical, just watch some of his speech videos on youtube, too much of what he says is based on the past and not the future.