91–100 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?
I have a new alternative called Tree Notation: https://github.com/breck7/treenotation A sample from an HTML replacement: @html @body @div Hello world A sample from a CSS replacement: @a cursor pointer text-decoration none It is not HAML, though that was one of my first inspirations many years ago.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
The basic thing to remember is that HTML was never meant to handle UIs. It was a very basic document layout format, with some simple ways to provide the reader with addresses for references etc. 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.
http://lively-kernel.org/ (from ~2012)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You must not be familiar with the STEPS project, a complete OS project (with a compiler collection, 2D vector drawing and compositing, desktop publishing, online communications…), in 20K lines of code. Mainstream OSes by comparison are more like 200M lines (10K books). That stuff is pretty concrete, with an actual GUI and real software. One can get their hands on the source code, though it's really not meant for publ…
Are binaries available, to run in a VM at least? Also, can you provide a link to the source code?
Some kids learn guitar. Some kids fantasize about learning guitar. Apple makes machines that enable the computing equivalent of both of these things.
You're never going to turn all listeners into musicians, all readers into writers, all theater-goers into actors. You can't even get everyone to dance at a wedding with an open bar. Technology can play a role in getting a few more people over the line, but Alan Kay's head is way too far in the clouds for him to even see the problem that way.
Honestly, I think what he's done is dissociated himself from his own snobbery. He talks about technology failing humanity, but he's really saying he doesn't like people. He doesn't like how most people think and live. Why else would he constantly be disappointed in technology failing to turn all of humanity into always-on cultural creatives? It's like he looks at books and says, well, the dream for books is for everyone to read challenging literature, but at the beach or on the subway you see mostly "Eat Pray Love" and Stephen King, so clearly books have failed.
People are doing the same dumb shit with books and technology that they did without it. They choose passive consumption. When I complain about it, I'll blame it on technology so I don't sound like a misanthrope.
He constantly talks about creating, learning, and education, but he doesn't bring any attention to any current work supporting these activities. He doesn't say, look, here's this great work being done for kids, and it's limited because the iPad needs this feature. He doesn't say, look, here's this great computing system I use to support my own work, and it be a lot better with this specific kind of OS or hardware support. Instead of talking about how the Apple hardware is holding back current work, he's talking about how it fails to implement his own ideas from thirty years ago.
You'd think he could find SOME new idea to promote and celebrate, if only to point out what he thinks progress looks like, but apparently Apple has snuffed out every worthwhile avenue of improvement by a few unfortunate unfortunate hardware choices.
Hell, where's even the usesthis interview with Alan Kay?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're not building something for people, what are you building? Art? I'm fine with that, but just because you're making art, doesn't mean everyone else is an idiot. Also I think it's very condescending to think that others didn't have vision. Lastly it's cheap to criticize someone else for "shitty execution" when you yourself have the ability to show with your own execution but you clearly haven't. It's easy to t…
Herein lies a dangerous assumption prominent in neoliberal thinking: that "building something for people" is only possible by making something that is inherently "profitable." Kay has spoken endlessly on the fact that PARC was -- in spirit, structure, and personnel -- largely the last gasp of the ARPA/IPTO funding culture. That we don't have this kind of basic research funding anymore is one of the reasons we don't h…
2. Which means you're making assumptions about what I'm thinking.
3. Please don't label others on the Internet with words like "Neoliberal", etc. We are all same people and there may be misunderstanding but we are not fundamentally different species.
4. My point was not to say these not-for-profit research is useless, but that if you're in this field, you should own it. If people build things that are mediocre and you know a better way, why not build one and show it for yourself? He hasn't done that because he doesn't know either. And by "Knowing" I mean actually knowing to build a product that people will use without any problem. It is easy to criticize implementation, it's not easy to actually do it yourself. With all due respect, prototyping and actually turning it into a product that general public can use are completely different ball games.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the end i think he, like many intellectuals, overestimate people's interest in learning. Aka you can bring a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
actually I'd argue he understands the problem pretty well. He talks about needing to offer something SO compelling they cannot help but interface with it, in spite of their desire for things that do not push them.
Has the number of people who want to learn decreased? If so, was it because of iPhones/iPads?
If people could understand what computing was about, the iPhone would not be a bad thing. But because people don’t understand what computing is about, they think they have it in the iPhone, and that illusion is as bad as the illusion that Guitar Hero is the same as a real guitar. That’s the simple long and the short of it. Some kids learn guitar. Some kids fantasize about learning guitar. Apple makes machines that en…
>They choose passive consumption
The same person is likely an active producer in one area, and a passive consumer in others. I know I am.
Last VPRI paper I read was some whiz-bang way of laying out proportional text. Cool, but when the whole damned industry is a battlefield for locking-in devs and wringing as much money as possible from the digital peasantry, making a slightly better text rendering algorithm seems like mental masturbation.
If he took that money they were giving him for VPRI to re-live his glory days, and gave it to devs who are giving away high-quality creative software instead, that would go a lot further towards his goal.
https://www.blender.org https://ephtracy.github.io http://16-bits.org/pt.php http://www.audacityteam.org https://www.gimp.org http://picoe.ca/products/pablodraw/
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Herein lies a dangerous assumption prominent in neoliberal thinking: that "building something for people" is only possible by making something that is inherently "profitable." Kay has spoken endlessly on the fact that PARC was -- in spirit, structure, and personnel -- largely the last gasp of the ARPA/IPTO funding culture. That we don't have this kind of basic research funding anymore is one of the reasons we don't h…
1. I agree with your general argument about the need for deep research. 2. Which means you're making assumptions about what I'm thinking. 3. Please don't label others on the Internet with words like "Neoliberal", etc. We are all same people and there may be misunderstanding but we are not fundamentally different species. 4. My point was not to say these not-for-profit research is useless, but that if you're in this f…
By the way, Alan Kay has built stuff people can actually use. Scratch, for instance is so usable that even children can learn it.
Ah. Learning. I don't want to assume, but it looks like you missed the part where Alan Kay wants the general public to learn about computers, and stops viewing them as magic golems. This is a completely different ball game from merely making a popular consumer device.