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> It should have had protocol-level technologies for preserving historic data, for search, for offline use, for authoring and publishing. [...] He was talking a

> It should have had protocol-level technologies for preserving historic data, for search, for offline use, for authoring and publishing. [...] He was talking about the lack of protocol-level solutions for resilience of the Web. That's completely at odds with what Kay actually advocates for. His position is strongly aligned with the "mechanism, not policy" philosophy. That is, what he advocates for is less of what you want, not more. This is apparent from that Dr Dobbs interview, his work with VPRI, back to his OOPSLA speech in 1997. To wit: > HTML on the Internet has gone back to the dark ages, because it presupposes that there should be a browser that should understand its formats. [...] You don't need a browser if you followed what this staff sergeant in the Air Force knew how to do in 1961. Just read it in, it should travel with all the things that it needs, and you don't need anything more complex than something like X Windows. Kay has always sat on the diametrically opposite site of the table as those favoring the Principle of Least Power—one of the most underappreciated tenets of computing. Tim Berners-Lee called it out in Axioms of Web Architecture: > At the other end of the scale is the weather information portrayed by the cunning Java applet. While this might allow a very cool user interface, it cannot be analyzed at all. The search engine finding the page will have no idea of what the data is or what it is about. The only way to find out what a Java applet means is to set it running in front of a person. You can get a better view of what a world that more closely adhered to Kay's vision would look like in Stanislav's (an adherent's) post, "No Formats, No Wars": http://www.loper-os.org/?p=309 http://www.loper-os.org/?p=309

romaniv 9y ago
Having watched nearly every talk/interview of Kay I could find on YouTube (which includes the OOPSLA keynote) and having read some of his writings I think I have a reasonably good understanding of what he is advocating for. Here is Kay talking about Internet's resilience in a bit more detail: https://youtu.be/NdSD07U5uBs?t=1472 https://youtu.be/NdSD07U5uBs?t=1472 >His position is strongly aligned with the "mechanism, not policy" philosophy. I don't see how this opposes or contradicts any of what I wrote above.
- jasode 9y ago
  >and having read some of his writings I think I have a reasonably good understanding of what he is advocating for. In the Dr Dobbs interview[1] that you pulled the quote from, Alan Kay is not talking about protocols for web resilience. Actually, there is no mention of "protocols" in that article at all. Even outside of that particular article, AK doesn't talk much about "protocols" other than the protocol of "message passing" in Smalltalk which is a different meaning from "internet protocols". Tim Berners-Lee is a figure that speaks of new protocols for decentralization, etc. That's not Alan Kay's angle. If you think AK is imploring the tech community for new internet protocols, you need to cite another AK source other than that Dr Dobbs interview. >[Alan Kay] was talking about the lack of protocol-level solutions for resilience of the Web. That's not what he's talking about. He's complaining that the "web" did not make it easy for people to do computing. One example in that interview was Wikipedia page on Logo programming language not being able to execute Logo programs. Kay's criticism of the "web done by amateurs" looks to be the same train of thought about his ideal Dynabook enabling people to participate in computing rather than something like the Apple iPad where people just read news or watch videos. [1] http://www.drdobbs.com/article/print?articleId=240003442&siteSectionName=architecture-and-design http://www.drdobbs.com/article/print?articleId=240003442&sit...
  - romaniv 9y ago
    Just because Kay criticized the Web for its limits on user participation does not mean he did not criticize it for other reasons. Here is an entire talk on complexity and robustness in software where the Web is mentioned as one of the worst offenders of design by accretion: https://youtu.be/QboI_1WJUlM?t=1046 https://youtu.be/QboI_1WJUlM?t=1046 (I'm linking to a specific part, but the entire thing is worth listening to.) Also, he does talk about protocols. Heck, VPRI implemented a TCP/IP implementation by treating it as a language and using a non-deterministic parser. http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2007008_steps.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2007008_steps.pdf Page 17.
jstimpfle 9y ago
This I think is the most important question in search of a better web architecture. You could say it's the HTML vs LaTeX question. I don't mean the "hard to develop with macros and mountains of documentation and ungraspable errors and imcompatible packages" aspect to LaTeX. But rather the question of introspection. (Think also of bibtex and how to compile a document relying on it) IMHO both approaches are crap and barely work. I don't actually think HTML supports web searches or semantics very well, and obviously it is painful to develop interactive applications in, as well. Same goes for LaTeX, even though it's coming from the other side. I think we should have containers instead, with in-band data (somewhere linked in a for-the-web assembly language) and out-of-band metadata (in various formats, to support search engines or other enterprises).. Granted, site providers could play tricks by serving disagreeing data over these channels, but in a way that's possible even now with HTML.

romaniv 9y ago

Having watched nearly every talk/interview of Kay I could find on YouTube (which includes the OOPSLA keynote) and having read some of his writings I think I have a reasonably good understanding of what he is advocating for. Here is Kay talking about Internet's resilience in a bit more detail: https://youtu.be/NdSD07U5uBs?t=1472 https://youtu.be/NdSD07U5uBs?t=1472 >His position is strongly aligned with the "mechanism, not policy" philosophy. I don't see how this opposes or contradicts any of what I wrote above.

jasode 9y ago
>and having read some of his writings I think I have a reasonably good understanding of what he is advocating for. In the Dr Dobbs interview[1] that you pulled the quote from, Alan Kay is not talking about protocols for web resilience. Actually, there is no mention of "protocols" in that article at all. Even outside of that particular article, AK doesn't talk much about "protocols" other than the protocol of "message passing" in Smalltalk which is a different meaning from "internet protocols". Tim Berners-Lee is a figure that speaks of new protocols for decentralization, etc. That's not Alan Kay's angle. If you think AK is imploring the tech community for new internet protocols, you need to cite another AK source other than that Dr Dobbs interview. >[Alan Kay] was talking about the lack of protocol-level solutions for resilience of the Web. That's not what he's talking about. He's complaining that the "web" did not make it easy for people to do computing. One example in that interview was Wikipedia page on Logo programming language not being able to execute Logo programs. Kay's criticism of the "web done by amateurs" looks to be the same train of thought about his ideal Dynabook enabling people to participate in computing rather than something like the Apple iPad where people just read news or watch videos. [1] http://www.drdobbs.com/article/print?articleId=240003442&siteSectionName=architecture-and-design http://www.drdobbs.com/article/print?articleId=240003442&sit...
- romaniv 9y ago
  Just because Kay criticized the Web for its limits on user participation does not mean he did not criticize it for other reasons. Here is an entire talk on complexity and robustness in software where the Web is mentioned as one of the worst offenders of design by accretion: https://youtu.be/QboI_1WJUlM?t=1046 https://youtu.be/QboI_1WJUlM?t=1046 (I'm linking to a specific part, but the entire thing is worth listening to.) Also, he does talk about protocols. Heck, VPRI implemented a TCP/IP implementation by treating it as a language and using a non-deterministic parser. http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2007008_steps.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2007008_steps.pdf Page 17.

jstimpfle 9y ago

This I think is the most important question in search of a better web architecture. You could say it's the HTML vs LaTeX question. I don't mean the "hard to develop with macros and mountains of documentation and ungraspable errors and imcompatible packages" aspect to LaTeX. But rather the question of introspection. (Think also of bibtex and how to compile a document relying on it) IMHO both approaches are crap and barely work. I don't actually think HTML supports web searches or semantics very well, and obviously it is painful to develop interactive applications in, as well. Same goes for LaTeX, even though it's coming from the other side. I think we should have containers instead, with in-band data (somewhere linked in a for-the-web assembly language) and out-of-band metadata (in various formats, to support search engines or other enterprises).. Granted, site providers could play tricks by serving disagreeing data over these channels, but in a way that's possible even now with HTML.