I just found your comment. One answer wrt e.g. Javascript is to use it as a "machine code" and just put a whole better designed thing on top of it. Or try to ge

I just found your comment. One answer wrt e.g. Javascript is to use it as a "machine code" and just put a whole better designed thing on top of it. Or try to get the web world to get behind Native Client or something better that allows a protected sandbox to be really developed into new facilities. Another answer is to not to go back to Engelbart, but to at least start with large ideas like his, and try to think of the Internet and Personal Computing as something much more than a convenience -- but more as a "lifter" of humanity. What would that mean? Another ploy would be to simply think about what is needed close to the end-users and to follow that back towards the plug in the wall (one hint is that there is no need to encounter a 60s style "operating system" -- so what would be much better in a real Internet universe?) The main heuristic is to posit "I don't really know what I'm doing, and I'm not a strong enough thinker, and 'You can't learn to see until you admit you are blind, and etc." This is my starting place for trying to do real thinking i.e. we aren't as smart as we need to be -- so we have to put real work and method into thinking and design. Tony Hoare had a good observation. He said that debugging is harder than programming, so don't use all your abilities in programming, or you'll never get the program working. We can extend that into design. Design is difficult, but being able to assess one's designs is even harder -- leave something in reserve to avoid simply making things because we can.