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Ideas for Computing

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Re: Ideas for Computing

#71

Post by aroman »

samsquire wrote: post #63
thisisrobv wrote: post #61

I had high hopes for this and was immediately turned off by #3. I still can't believe that their are developers who believe that design is just the pretty layer on top of their functioning infrastructure. It's not. That said, I wish there was a site that connected people with complementary skill sets around similar product ideas.

The idea is to connect someone who has created something technical and useful in concept with someone who can create a wonderful user experience out of it. These are not always the same people.

I think what he's saying (and I tend to agree) is that you can't develop the technical side in isolation from the actual design. Design is much more than appearance -- it determines how your site works, how parts interact, and can very often give immense direction to the backend.

I agree with your idea (#3) but only as the reverse -- imagine a website of "ideas" and mockups waiting for people to implement them. I believe great apps start with design, not with a backend. (Of course you can write them in either order -- the point is to have considered and drafted a design before starting on the backend).

Re: Ideas for Computing

#72

Post by lambda »

Meh. A lot of these sound like those ideas that any programmer comes up with, about what would be great, without ever actually putting the sweat in to turn a vague idea into something that actually works.

I have probably as many half-baked schemes in the back of my mind. We probably all do. Why is this list particularly interesting?

Heck, lots of these ideas sound downright bad. Adding operations for "put in new folder" and "pull out of folder"? Don't we already have plenty of ways to do this? A basic set of primitives (create new folder, move files to folder, whether done through the UI or on the command line), allows you to compose those simple actions into the more complex ones, rather than having some giant menu of everything you could ever possibly want to do with files that you need to navigate through.

I'm just not sure what the value of long lists of vague, half-baked features ideas for random software is. Why not actually build one or two of these? That would be far more interesting.

Re: Ideas for Computing

#74

Post by mtrimpe »

unimpressive wrote: post #54
mtrimpe wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bash scripting in the style of hypercard. It sounds like the Clojure library Stevedore [1] does what you're looking for there. [1] https://github.com/pallet/stevedore

Is it a graphical interface? There aren't any screenshots. Or do you mean the library would be useful in building the tool?

Ah; I forget that Hypercard was a visual interface and replied as though you were just looking for a higher-level shell creation utility.

But yeah; maybe LightTable + Stevedore could get you halfway there...

Re: Ideas for Computing

#75

Post by samsquire »

aroman wrote: post #73

#87 "Interface Coalescing" is precisely implemented across OS X, notably the Finder for file I/O. Also, you spelled "Coalescing" wrong :)

Thanks, fixed.

Do you know if it has an API? It would be nice if it was a standard piece of architecture available on the desktop environment without creating completely dedicated dialogs. There would be some way to define how interfaces are to be merged.

Re: Ideas for Computing

#76

Post by gdubs »

lambda wrote: post #72

Meh. A lot of these sound like those ideas that any programmer comes up with, about what would be great, without ever actually putting the sweat in to turn a vague idea into something that actually works. I have probably as many half-baked schemes in the back of my mind. We probably all do. Why is this list particularly interesting? Heck, lots of these ideas sound downright bad. Adding operations for "put in new fold…

A lot of ideas start out half-baked, in brainstorming sessions, etc. Even if you don't like the ideas here, judging from other comments it's at least thought-provoking. And this person basically opened up their private journal of ideas for anyone to look at.

Re: Ideas for Computing

#77

Post by cdcarter »

unimpressive wrote: post #19

I've thought of some of these independently. (It's good to see somebody else did too.) We could probably make more progress if we all kept a list like this publicly. Or even privately, with snippets shared where appropriate. I know if I went through some old journals I could scrounge up a decent list myself. One I had: Bash scripting in the style of hypercard. Hypercard was described to me as a system that had a set…

> Bash scripting in the style of hypercard.

This feels like what Automator is. It's definitely not as powerful as Hypercard was, but just for shell stuff its very cool. Not text based, but it can help accomplish A LOT of bulk processes.

Re: Ideas for Computing

#78

Post by eitland »

sparkie wrote: post #31
Erwin wrote: post #22

This reminds of this: http://www.squidi.net/three/ which attempts to define a large number of computer game gameplay mechanics. Maybe we need more forwarding-reaching fiction in our world. More essays on computing futurology, grand envisioning of what we can achieve with software. Even ambitious prototypes of a new way to do something (like Lighttable) A lot of what I see are tooling details, lot of boring effort dup…

The problem is most modern computing is driven by the single question: "How can I monetize this idea?" It's only hobbyists and academics that really try to improve the state of computing, rather than having a primary focus on revenue. It's unfortunate that groundbreaking ideas are usually not the moneymakers, else we'd see innovation at a quicker rate. Software patents are another hindrance to innovation too. Often t…

Can someone confirm the patent part? From what I heard an idea is unpatentable as soon as it has been described in public even, from what I heard, if it was in a comic.

Re: Ideas for Computing

#79

Post by ChuckMcM »

One I keep noodling on is the one 'Ethical Me' which, on its face works well for ethics but it works for other things as well. Like documenting things you bought because they were 'more secure' or 'higher quality' etc. Understanding the meta-data of what is security 'worth' or quality 'worth' would really help inform product managers about whether or not investing resources there makes sense from a product desirability standpoint.

Re: Ideas for Computing

#80

Post by maged »

The added features of email metadata can be achieved without the added complexities of adding metadata to all email, with a simple NLP solution. Gmail already does this with date recognition and google calendar integration, as well as the new email 'categories.' It'll be cool to see it expand so any application can take advantage of it (i.e. key management software and joining a new website).
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