What the author wants is something like Squeak. The idea behind Smalltalk wasn't to do a programming language, but a realization of the DynaBook (google for the

What the author wants is something like Squeak. The idea behind Smalltalk wasn't to do a programming language, but a realization of the DynaBook (google for the essay "History Behind Smalltalk"). While I agree with the author that more innovation is needed on the desktop; I think that the essay is very disinformed. For example, Squeak can be seen as an OS with very few layers: everything is an object, and sys calls are primitives. As user you can play with all the layers, and re-arrange the UI as you want. So why the idea didn't took off? I don't know exactly (but I have my hypothesis). There are many factors to balance, those many factors are the ones that makes design hard. One of those factors is that people tend to put the wrong priorities of where innovation should be. A good example is what the author mentions as priorities for him. None of the items mentions fundamental problems that computer users face today (from my perspective of course).