31–40 of 51 posts
This has been solved. The solution is called DCI. Data Context Interaction. A new paradigm where you design your software according to the end users mental model. Understand DCI and you should be able to craft software that makes more sense per usability. Trygve Reenskaug has explained why the traditional MVC is flawed. ref. http://www.artima.com/articles/dci_visionP.html
Unfortunately, often it ends up being very annoying when the computer tries to be smart. Not to say it can't be done, but the PC's helping hand is not always welcome.
Yeah, when a program tries to be smart and repeatedly, helpfully "corrects" what you're doing, it often just gets in the way or corrupts your work. Word is the first example that comes to mind (for myself, and many people). One such situation is they way that git just punts on hard merge decisions - coming up with accurate heuristics for complex merging is very difficult, but the programmer responsible for the merged…
But we do notice when it changes acronyms and other things in a way that makes us ctrl+z the auto-correct.
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Sometimes the assumptions that you make to make software smart will make users go postal. I once had a coworker who was a smart guy. He helped design the guidance system for the HARM missiles. But one day he called me over to his office to ask for help. Ends up Microsoft Word was automatically injecting text while he was typing and he didn't know how to get it to stop. The smart software's injects were correct given…
As for addresses, something like Facebook or LinkedIn could be tremendously useful. Instead of storing bits in a database, you could basically subscribe to another's address info. In fact, accounts to these websites amount to subscribing to other's personal or professional info, and letting them subscribe to yours.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, when a program tries to be smart and repeatedly, helpfully "corrects" what you're doing, it often just gets in the way or corrupts your work. Word is the first example that comes to mind (for myself, and many people). One such situation is they way that git just punts on hard merge decisions - coming up with accurate heuristics for complex merging is very difficult, but the programmer responsible for the merged…
Trouble is, you don't notice the thousand times when Word corrects a "teh", a caps "MIstake", or an apostrophe screw-up. But we do notice when it changes acronyms and other things in a way that makes us ctrl+z the auto-correct.
Preferences like this need to be tended by operating systems. If I tell one text editor widget about "Smalltalk," there's no reason why all of them across the system shouldn't know about it.
All the problems he's describing could be solved in about five minutes, if he were using Emacs' org-mode, bbdb, and VM-mode or Gnus to read mail. But only if he'd spent a couple hours learning them first. There are tradeoffs with every kind of software. That little screenshot he posted is beautiful ; time spent making a program beautiful is time not spent making it functional. The ability to run these little utility…
Stuff like this is all through the Symbolics Lisp machine OS. Any object that could print itself out to a stream of text automagically got a hot-link back to an "inspector" of itself in any text window it printed itself out to. Not any GUI programming was necessary, but text utilities were part of that GUI navigation. (The magic of "around" inheritance in MOP.)
We have low expectations of OS today, which were formed in the days of green screen machines that were many orders of magnitude slower, had many orders of magnitude less memory, and where you had to count every byte. We have low expectations of GUIs, formed by GUIs designed when machines struggled to run them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sometimes the assumptions that you make to make software smart will make users go postal. I once had a coworker who was a smart guy. He helped design the guidance system for the HARM missiles. But one day he called me over to his office to ask for help. Ends up Microsoft Word was automatically injecting text while he was typing and he didn't know how to get it to stop. The smart software's injects were correct given…
Some of what Seth was talking about was just bad programming. AM/PM default was just bad or lazy programming. Some of what he's talking about could be taken care of using Bayesian filters or something at that level. (AM/PM default could be taken care of this way too) Make things mildly adaptive and unobtrusive, and us? As for addresses, something like Facebook or LinkedIn could be tremendously useful. Instead of stor…
I believe this is what Plaxo does, no?
Unfortunately, often it ends up being very annoying when the computer tries to be smart. Not to say it can't be done, but the PC's helping hand is not always welcome.