Kevin Beal Posted January 31, 2015 Posted January 31, 2015 Ted Nelson is awesome. He is an 'American pioneer of information technology, philosopher, and sociologist' who talks about the history of computing like Howard Zinn does United States history. There are certain paradigms in computing that are so ubiquitous that you wouldn't ever even think to question it, but which are nevertheless false and have caused a lot of problems in information technology today. I just sort of assumed that everything has sorta been worked out, ... scientifically or mathematically, or something. I mean, their computer scientists for corn's sake! Anyway, watch this shorter video that will give you a sense of what I mean (below) and then watch a longer video below that. 1
FriendlyHacker Posted January 31, 2015 Posted January 31, 2015 This is common sense to me, the inner workings of how things are built is very messy. Consider that a piece of software is a lump of bugs that's somehow stable enough to perform the necessary tasks. 1
yagami Posted January 31, 2015 Posted January 31, 2015 Im a technology guy and I feel like this guy really doesn't know what he's talking about. I dont understand what he means by politics in technology. There is no politics there is the free market of ideas. If you design a programming language that takes off it took off because enough people decided that the language fits their needs. People are constantly looking for ways to improve on technology and that includes thinking outside the box. If he has a new way of structuring technology then he needs to put in the work to make it a reality. Stop complaining that you have the answer but no one will listen. If there is any sector in the economy where there are the most free thinkers it's in technology. I can claim to be a genius but I still have to sell my ideas and that isn't going away. This applies to technology or any other product or idea you want to sell. This guy sounds like one of those guys that complains about capitalism but has never grown and taken a product to market. If this guys idea is really so great surely he can apply his theories into practice in the form of a product to prove his belief that technology is moving in the wrong direction. In the first video he gave an example of an alternative way of doing things but it sounded to me like he just described some software that anyone could code. Which again leads me to ask why not build write the software and bring it to market. Politics? I dont think so. 1
shirgall Posted January 31, 2015 Posted January 31, 2015 In the first video he addresses a couple of metaphors, but I have counterexamples that spring to mind right away. Relational databases (especially with the capability to rollback and forward from a point in time) don't fit his lump data metaphor, as they include business rules and other contexts. Version control systems also have the "small lump" and "time series" aspects modeled rather well. His point about user interfaces is well taken, of course, but the problem with interfaces is that radical changes are not acceptable to people who don't want to take the time to learn another metaphor. But, for example, video games and dashboards are two interfaces with radically different metaphors that are quite different than the window/file/application model. I like his sideways thinking, of course, it helps build perspective. I love the quote, "Everyone thinks they can design great interfaces and almost no one can." So true.
Mr. Binary Posted January 31, 2015 Posted January 31, 2015 I dont understand what he means by politics in technology. I think he means internal politics within large companies. But there's plenty of politics in tech outside of companies too, mostly related to the US legal, patent, and copyright systems. Patent trolls, suing competitors out of business, bogus copyright lawsuits, etc. If you design a programming language that takes off it took off because enough people decided that the language fits their needs. Or because Apple decided that this is now going to be the programming language you have to use if you want to develop for their operating system. If he has a new way of structuring technology then he needs to put in the work to make it a reality. Unfortunately, that ship has sailed. Some concepts in technology have become so ubiquitous that any new developments in those areas would have to bring tremendous benefits in order to become widely accepted. He's (correctly) pointing out that some people think this is how technology must be, while the truth is that it's simply how the people that happened to be in the right place at the right time made it to be. 1
Kevin Beal Posted January 31, 2015 Author Posted January 31, 2015 If he has a new way of structuring technology then he needs to put in the work to make it a reality. Stop complaining that you have the answer but no one will listen. If there is any sector in the economy where there are the most free thinkers it's in technology. I work in technology, work in multiple programming languages and build interfaces. There is politics everywhere. It's not monopolistic violent politics, but in the colloquial sense, of people picking certain standards arbitrarily and having them be accepted as deterministic truth. Your point about programming languages being good because that's what people chose is actually pretty interesting. Javascript is by far the most popular programming language in the world, and it is a great language in a lot of ways, but it's also terrible in many other ways. Things that have nothing to do with the scope of the language, but are just dumb decisions chosen at the beginning that we're stuck with. Serious programmers who work in Javascript have been pushing for additions to the language for a decade now, and finally a new version with some important new design decisions is going to be rolling out this year in the major browsers and used more broadly in a year or two after that. The standards body in charge of Javascript is so ridiculously full of politics that people have been desperate to get away from javascript if they can in the last few years, using javascript as a transpilation target for other languages to be reinterpreted in, so that it would work in the browser. The window/file/application approach works for a lot of projects, obviously, or else we'd be in much more trouble right now, but accepting it as the only approach gets certain things put into standards and only allow things to interface in that particular way. Ted Nelson has produced software and is working on multiple pieces of software which use his design principles, which he demos in other videos on his channel. He claims to have come up with the back button, and he further claims that no one else thought it was a good idea at the time and he had to fight for it. I believe that Ted Nelson is also on the Google payroll, serving as a consultant, is highly acclaimed and respected among people who've been in the industry a long time. Ted Nelson is not saying that we cannot have the lump files, or hierarchical organization, but that the implementation of these things in computing informs bad user experience where those paradigms don't work. And implementing alternatives on systems that already are locked in that paradigm requires a certain level of abstraction that shouldn't be necessary: using a system to create the opposite of how it works. You can produce lump file systems and hierarchical organization in other more flexible systems that don't require you to stick with lump files and hierarchical systems at the expense of every other alternative structure. 1
Kevin Beal Posted January 31, 2015 Author Posted January 31, 2015 I can claim to be a genius but I still have to sell my ideas and that isn't going away. Also, I don't think he ever claimed to be a genius (the first part of my message is awaiting moderation)
yagami Posted February 1, 2015 Posted February 1, 2015 I work in technology, work in multiple programming languages and build interfaces. There is politics everywhere. It's not monopolistic violent politics, but in the colloquial sense, of people picking certain standards arbitrarily and having them be accepted as deterministic truth. Your point about programming languages being good because that's what people chose is actually pretty interesting. Javascript is by far the most popular programming language in the world, and it is a great language in a lot of ways, but it's also terrible in many other ways. Things that have nothing to do with the scope of the language, but are just dumb decisions chosen at the beginning that we're stuck with. Serious programmers who work in Javascript have been pushing for additions to the language for a decade now, and finally a new version with some important new design decisions is going to be rolling out this year in the major browsers and used more broadly in a year or two after that. The standards body in charge of Javascript is so ridiculously full of politics that people have been desperate to get away from javascript if they can in the last few years, using javascript as a transpilation target for other languages to be reinterpreted in, so that it would work in the browser. The window/file/application approach works for a lot of projects, obviously, or else we'd be in much more trouble right now, but accepting it as the only approach gets certain things put into standards and only allow things to interface in that particular way. Ted Nelson has produced software and is working on multiple pieces of software which use his design principles, which he demos in other videos on his channel. He claims to have come up with the back button, and he further claims that no one else thought it was a good idea at the time and he had to fight for it. I believe that Ted Nelson is also on the Google payroll, serving as a consultant, is highly acclaimed and respected among people who've been in the industry a long time. Ted Nelson is not saying that we cannot have the lump files, or hierarchical organization, but that the implementation of these things in computing informs bad user experience where those paradigms don't work. And implementing alternatives on systems that already are locked in that paradigm requires a certain level of abstraction that shouldn't be necessary: using a system to create the opposite of how it works. You can produce lump file systems and hierarchical organization in other more flexible systems that don't require you to stick with lump files and hierarchical systems at the expense of every other alternative structure. Im not saying that programming languages are good because they are popular exactly. It's like saying horses are good sources of transportation when the car hasn't been invented. It's not that the horse is good it's just what works for the more people at a particular point in time. I guess I really didn't get anything revolutionary out of his videos. As far as politics are concerned that comes from a lack of business sense in my opinion. If you are choosing to run your business in a way that isn't to your businesses benefit then that comes from a lack of understanding and you will suffer loses proportional to the severity of your mistake. If you are running your business for your benefit at the cost of your consumers we all know where that leads. It may take a while but the most efficient system wins in the end. His fight seems more difficult then getting people to stop hitting their children and I commend him for his efforts. It's almost like he is the Steph of technology and I hope he succeeds in makes our technology better. (Assuming his ideas are actually better). Time will tell.
FriendlyHacker Posted February 17, 2015 Posted February 17, 2015 Im a technology guy and I feel like this guy really doesn't know what he's talking about. I dont understand what he means by politics in technology. Why people choose one programming language and not the other? Why this framework instead of that one? Politics. Reality is you can get the job done in pretty much any language, but you have to go where the community in general is going, else you will be stuck with code very few people understand and are able to update. The Free Software Foundation is clearly a political and philosophical movement, there is a lot of politics in licensing so maybe there is more politics going around than you realize. Or maybe you think that politics is something that only applies to government, which it isn't.
Sal9000 Posted February 17, 2015 Posted February 17, 2015 A nice, thought provoking video. However, his stance that a text file is only file is not accurate. If you want to write a scientific paper, you use tex or latex. While you can create one large file, most use different files that can be put together quite easily (not to speak of tex's stability that is unparalleled). In addition, better file systems like ufs2 have been developed in the meantime, that take up many of his criticisms.Edit: here is something that i am very interested in lately
Kevin Beal Posted February 18, 2015 Author Posted February 18, 2015 Edit: here is something that i am very interested in lately That is freakin' badass. Thanks for the share!
AncapFTW Posted February 27, 2015 Posted February 27, 2015 A nice, thought provoking video. However, his stance that a text file is only file is not accurate. If you want to write a scientific paper, you use tex or latex. While you can create one large file, most use different files that can be put together quite easily (not to speak of tex's stability that is unparalleled). In addition, better file systems like ufs2 have been developed in the meantime, that take up many of his criticisms. Edit: here is something that i am very interested in lately Finally there's a language you don't have to babysit to get stuff done. I won't even have to write subroutines to handle simple functions. Yeah! Probably pretty expensive, though.
Kevin Beal Posted February 27, 2015 Author Posted February 27, 2015 Finally there's a language you don't have to babysit to get stuff done. I won't even have to write subroutines to handle simple functions. Yeah There are other languages that don't require you to write subroutines to handle simple functions.
shirgall Posted February 28, 2015 Posted February 28, 2015 There are other languages that don't require you to write subroutines to handle simple functions. In fact, most languages don't require you to write subroutines at all, it's just convenient because code reuse is easier (and harder to mess up) that way.
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