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Larry Tesler pioneered cut-and-paste, the one-button mouse, WYSIWYG (2005)

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Re: Larry Tesler pioneered cut-and-paste, the one-button mouse, WYSIWYG (2005)

#21

Post by otras »

mark-r wrote: post #6

It amazes me that something as simple and obvious as cut and paste had to be invented. Even more amazing that we can actually point to the person that did it.

I’m loosely reminded of that Roger Sterling quote from Mad Men: ”I'll tell you what brilliance in advertising is: 99 cents. Somebody thought of that."

Re: Larry Tesler pioneered cut-and-paste, the one-button mouse, WYSIWYG (2005)

#23

Post by airstrike »

mark-r wrote: post #6

It amazes me that something as simple and obvious as cut and paste had to be invented. Even more amazing that we can actually point to the person that did it.

Indeed! I'm writing an app that resizes and moves shapes on a canvas (among other things) and I'm amazed at how many trivial little things I had to write that everyone including me would take for granted, including copying and pasting, drawing the little handles to resize the shape, changing the cursor based on what's below it (the handles or the shapes), drawing a translucent version of the shape when it's being moved/resized, changing the position of the shape when it is resized from _some_ of the handles but not all (top left vs. bottom right)...

Re: Larry Tesler pioneered cut-and-paste, the one-button mouse, WYSIWYG (2005)

#26

Post by rqtwteye »

mark-r wrote: post #6

It amazes me that something as simple and obvious as cut and paste had to be invented. Even more amazing that we can actually point to the person that did it.

There will be a lot of obvious stuff invented in the future that we aren't thinking about now.

Re: Larry Tesler pioneered cut-and-paste, the one-button mouse, WYSIWYG (2005)

#27

Post by bloopernova »

mark-r wrote: post #6

It amazes me that something as simple and obvious as cut and paste had to be invented. Even more amazing that we can actually point to the person that did it.

Back before 2009, early iPhones didn't have cut/copy and paste. Folks had to figure out a good scheme that worked with touch screens.

Re: Larry Tesler pioneered cut-and-paste, the one-button mouse, WYSIWYG (2005)

#28

Post by bluGill »

rqtwteye wrote: post #26
mark-r wrote: post #6

It amazes me that something as simple and obvious as cut and paste had to be invented. Even more amazing that we can actually point to the person that did it.

There will be a lot of obvious stuff invented in the future that we aren't thinking about now.

My dad grew up on a farm, and latter regretted not inventing the large round baler that most farmers use - he already knew about small round bales, so the only thing missing was make them larger and then haul them on a tractor instead of lifting by hand as you did the small bales. Despite saying the above for years it never occurred to him to invent the large square baler which the same concept (haul with a tractor), but stack better. Everything was known and so obvious in hindsight.

Re: Larry Tesler pioneered cut-and-paste, the one-button mouse, WYSIWYG (2005)

#29

Post by bluGill »

One button mouse was one of the worst inventions. Mice need at least 3 buttons to be useful. You sometimes need to select something and sometimes you need to launch it. Or you need to select in several different ways. Because of this miss-invention they had to invent the double-click and all the complexity of timing (try making double click for someone old an nearing senile and someone young and fast with the same timeouts - this is often impossible)

Re: Larry Tesler pioneered cut-and-paste, the one-button mouse, WYSIWYG (2005)

#30

Post by sandworm101 »

mark-r wrote: post #6

It amazes me that something as simple and obvious as cut and paste had to be invented. Even more amazing that we can actually point to the person that did it.

>> something as simple and obvious as cut and paste had to be invented.

Which is was. A few hundred years ago. Cut-and-paste began as a manual process. Arranging material for printed often involved very literal cutting and pasting of text and images. Entire trades (typesetters) were dedicated to the task. A more accurate description of Tesler's contribution was that he was the first to implement the concept in the digital realm. The person who "invented" the delete key did not invent the concept of deleting a character.

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