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Comment by alankay

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Comment by alankay

Thank you for this comment, I found it to be tremendously useful in helping me understand some of the attitudes of the present day.

I did understand the situation I was in, and I do see that the world has changed.

Arguments against passionately held positions are usually fruitless, and I don't like debate as a form. I will point out e.g. that there was nothing at all "top down" about the Xerox Parc process (that can be easily checked).

Leaving out the "anti-elite anger", I think that another round of the ARPA-IPTO type funding and research community (of which Parc was a part in the 70s) would make an enormous difference in the richness and levels of ideas and technologies available for computing to choose from. But let me note that the uptake of the 60s and 70s inventions by the larger field was a bit spotty and introduced a fair amount of noise when something was adopted at all. This would likely be the fate of many of newer better inventions than we were able to do 40 and more years ago.

The writer says: "For most of the rest of us, we have to get by with minimal funding and try to push ideas to an over saturated market." There's no question that the current side-conditions in commercial computing are stifling (and they were when I was a journeyman programmer in the early 60s: every important choice -- of problem, HW, tools, etc was already made and stipulated).

It's worth pointing out here that e.g. many of the most important inventions at Xerox Parc were done by a grand total of 25 researchers plus about an equal number of support folks. That represents a tiny percentage of "mad money" that most Fortune 500 companies would regard as "nothing". The cost in dollars is not the reason they don't invest in new inventions in computing, especially software.

One observation that I think obtains here, is that a very large percentage of computer people take much more joy in "devising" than "learning" -- and haven't tackled the idea that "lots of learning" will greatly uplift "devising".

I found the list above very illuminating in understanding where the author might be coming from. What's interesting is that it does represent "new things" that have appeared in the general world of computing -- and have happened after many of the ARPA/PARC etc. inventions.

I think that anyone who can find the perspectives to be able to criticize this list will also be able to see some of what has happened. What does it mean in the large that these are the solutions endorsed in the current day?

Something not on the list per se is the web and especially the web browser. Most computerists I talk to are unable to really criticize these, especially the latter. (The "new normal" seems to be inescapable "reality".)

I think a good one to pick on the list here would be "Docker" and "containers". There is a lot to be learned here, both about computing and people who do computing if this could be criticized deeply, and alternatives identified.

I find it interesting that the author purports to read my mind. This doesn't seem to be working.

Replies alankay · 2021-08-20
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