Dreaming the future of software; Project Editor ECMAScript 2015; Reformed Smalltalker JavaScript historian dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.114… @allenwb@mastodon.social
Sherwood Oregon USA
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@Ben_Reinhardt has a plan for filling the innovation niche that until about 1990 was addressed by industrial labs:
"technology that is too researchy for a startup and too engineering-heavy for academia"
nitter.catsarch.com/Ben_Reinhardt/status/1…
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After digging into why DARPA works, I asked the follow-up question:
How could you follow DARPA's narrow path in a world very different from the one that created it?
My answer: benjaminreinhardt.com/parpa
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"golden age industrial labs like Bell Labs, DuPont Experimental Station, GE Laboratories, and others, developed many technologies at the core of the modern world" and of course Xerox PARC. Most "large" companies with a tech component had such a lab.
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Although small compared to the digital consumption market, the potential market for such tools is large—not just a niche. Too many entrepreneurs are chasing the crowed/highly competative consumption market, missing wide-open “tools for thought” opportunities.
For me, tools for thought is about seeing computers as having untapped potential for helping humans be more thoughtful, creative, and fulfilled in their intellectual pursuits.
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Every waterfall-managed project needs one of these (a physical planning wall) in order to succeed. Gamifacation at its best.
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Allen Wirfs-Brock retweeted
Personal Digital Habitats:
It’s not too soon to start building “habitat-first” applications.
Blog post: wirfs-brock.com/allen/posts/…
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Allen Wirfs-Brock retweeted
Packing for a multi-day trail ultra run is a lot more fun if I imagine that I'm creating a new #dungeonsanddragons character :) #Cocodona250 #trailrunning
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Nice thread by @geoffreylitt, read it! He's one of a wave of thinkers/developers exploring next generation platforms and UX models. One issue is what does "local-first" mean when we (the users) have multiple "devices" that we constantly switch between.
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I'm super impressed by the approach @craftdocsapp is taking to data ownership.
At the same time, I think they're hitting the limits of modern data storage platforms, and hinting at precisely why we need a new kind of "collaborative filesystem".
Quick thread to explain:
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Timesharing, GUI-based personal computing, touch-based mobile computing, cloud computing all required fundamental operating system reinvention. It's time to reinvent again and create an OS that manages a federated PDH rather than a single computing device.
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7/6 This thread inspired me to write a blog post further explaining the concept of a Personal Digital Habitat
wirfs-brock.com/allen/posts/…
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Lots of interesting things going on with text processing apps these days. I wonder if 2021 can meet the standard set by 1981.
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Allen Wirfs-Brock retweeted
Excellent refreshing article from Erik on the user experience of infrastructural software like AWS.
I wrote a thing about what I want from software infrastructure in the future: erikbern.com/2021/04/19/soft…
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“The device I'm using to access a resource gives context of where I am and what I might want or need.” @andreatrasatti
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"When solving problems that are not inherently ill-defined, you often find better solutions by treating them as such."
I wrote a very silly blog post inspired by not so silly reading about how designers think. tomasp.net/blog/2021/softwar…
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I think "daemon" would have been a great alternative naming for application/apps. To bad it acquired a different technical meaning.
Thinking more about “apps”
I honestly never understood the name “application”, already was puzzled as a kid.
It’s how someone who doesn’t get computers describes “a thing you can do with a computer”
So what’s better than “app”?👇
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Yes, Apple seems to have the best grasp of this but only within the confies of their walled-garden (er, ecosystem).
If I’m going to have a personal digital habit that will last a lifetime, I can’t imagine it being subject to the whim of a single corporate entity.
This is an extremely hard problem, but not a technical one per-se. For instance apple is solving this problem, within their ecosystem with icloud where devices sync tons of things, and airdrop for local sharing.
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II imagine this as individual devices being capable of federating with multiple habitats. I’d likely have both a “personal" and a “work” habitat. Switching between them should be easy but sharing between them might be closer to how I collaboate with other people.
Imagine a work "space" or context that you can set boundaries on. The context changes at a certain time or when you take an action. From a system level if that filtered what you see and what asks for your attention, it'd help you draw those boundaries.
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We definatelly need to develop patterns for building digital habitats. We also will need to develop patterns for how humans interact with them. A modern “Habitat Human Interface Guidelines”
archives.design/post/6451504…
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Operating systems were originally developed to minimize waste of scarce expensive "computer time". What we need today is an operarting system that mimizrs waste of scarce human attention.
I agree in large with what @awbjs is saying. We do need a new OS. Something that adapts to how we use it and what we need. For example, it's hard to draw boundaries with work when you have all these notifications. Sure, you can turn them off... but what if they were contained.
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In this thread @ae_play strolls the path from apps running in a “machine room” to a homey Personal Digital Habitat.
Thinking more about “apps”
I honestly never understood the name “application”, already was puzzled as a kid.
It’s how someone who doesn’t get computers describes “a thing you can do with a computer”
So what’s better than “app”?👇
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