4 ms·

I think we tend to overestimate how "good" those people were. Yes they were definitely good professionals, but they happened to be in a very special place at a

I think we tend to overestimate how "good" those people were. Yes they were definitely good professionals, but they happened to be in a very special place at a special time with very few constraints compared to how we work now. It was a lot easier for them to innovate than for any of us now.

buescher 5y ago
Folks at PARC designed and built their own PDP-10 clone to get around internal politics. It's hard to overestimate the amount of talent concentrated there at the time. It always looks like all the low-hanging fruit has already been plucked. So, stop looking for low-hanging fruit.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  And they did it as a warm-up before tackling something difficult.
azinman2 5y ago
They were working in a total vacuum. Computers were classically giant things that simply tabulated or ran physics simulations. To create an entire well articulated vision of HCI is extremely difficult and requires both creativity and technical competence. I would not make such statements that it was easier to innovate then. In fact, I’d say it’s way easier to innovate now that so much exists to play with and mix and match, not to mention the ability to have perspective on negatives of assumptions previously made that can be corrected.
- retrocryptid 5y ago
  well... not a TOTAL vacuum. a number of the PARC people (thinking of Tesler & Kay) were intimately familiar with Englebart's work at SRI. When the ARC (Engelbart's Augmentation Research Center at SRI) was winding down and PARC was staffing up, the people who left first were supposedly those who rejected the "brittleness" of the expert-focused software ARC developed. It's definitely true that the cost of implementing a frame buffer fell well into the affordable range as they were moving to PARC. And politics at PARC made it easy to say you were developing a system for "inexpert document managers." They were definitely exploring new ideas about HCI as PC hardware was emerging. But Larry Tessler was pretty clear that Lisa learned what not to do from looking at the Alto & Star. And the Alto & Star learned what not to do by looking at various bits of ARC software. And Engelbart was adamant his team not repeat the UI/UX mistakes of ITS. So sure... they were trailblazers, but they had a good idea of where they wanted to go.
  - azinman2 5y ago
    > So sure... they were trailblazers, but they had a good idea of where they wanted to go. And where would that be? Not so obvious. Stick in a random person and they’d have no idea. You could easily say the same thing today. Are you not wanting to make the mistakes of all previous computing and know the direction it should take? If you do, and you’re able to execute and change the direction of computing, you’d be a very rare talent indeed.
EricE 5y ago
Ah, the old "they didn't earn that but lucked into it" argument.
- luckydata 5y ago
  so you're saying if those SPECIFIC people didn't exist we wouldn't have modern computers. I know Hacker News suffers from an extreme case of hero worship / cult of personality but I can't agree that technology and more generally progress works that way. Every new development is child of its time, talented people HAVE to meet with opportunity to generate extraordinary results, but I don't think Alan Kay is any more extraordinary as a human than anyone I work with, he just had an above average opportunity available to him and he seized it. Same for Page/Brin, find someone as smart as they were and try starting Google now, I bet it's not gonna go the same way.

buescher 5y ago

Folks at PARC designed and built their own PDP-10 clone to get around internal politics. It's hard to overestimate the amount of talent concentrated there at the time. It always looks like all the low-hanging fruit has already been plucked. So, stop looking for low-hanging fruit.

TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
And they did it as a warm-up before tackling something difficult.

azinman2 5y ago

They were working in a total vacuum. Computers were classically giant things that simply tabulated or ran physics simulations. To create an entire well articulated vision of HCI is extremely difficult and requires both creativity and technical competence. I would not make such statements that it was easier to innovate then. In fact, I’d say it’s way easier to innovate now that so much exists to play with and mix and match, not to mention the ability to have perspective on negatives of assumptions previously made that can be corrected.

retrocryptid 5y ago
well... not a TOTAL vacuum. a number of the PARC people (thinking of Tesler & Kay) were intimately familiar with Englebart's work at SRI. When the ARC (Engelbart's Augmentation Research Center at SRI) was winding down and PARC was staffing up, the people who left first were supposedly those who rejected the "brittleness" of the expert-focused software ARC developed. It's definitely true that the cost of implementing a frame buffer fell well into the affordable range as they were moving to PARC. And politics at PARC made it easy to say you were developing a system for "inexpert document managers." They were definitely exploring new ideas about HCI as PC hardware was emerging. But Larry Tessler was pretty clear that Lisa learned what not to do from looking at the Alto & Star. And the Alto & Star learned what not to do by looking at various bits of ARC software. And Engelbart was adamant his team not repeat the UI/UX mistakes of ITS. So sure... they were trailblazers, but they had a good idea of where they wanted to go.
- azinman2 5y ago
  > So sure... they were trailblazers, but they had a good idea of where they wanted to go. And where would that be? Not so obvious. Stick in a random person and they’d have no idea. You could easily say the same thing today. Are you not wanting to make the mistakes of all previous computing and know the direction it should take? If you do, and you’re able to execute and change the direction of computing, you’d be a very rare talent indeed.

EricE 5y ago

Ah, the old "they didn't earn that but lucked into it" argument.

luckydata 5y ago
so you're saying if those SPECIFIC people didn't exist we wouldn't have modern computers. I know Hacker News suffers from an extreme case of hero worship / cult of personality but I can't agree that technology and more generally progress works that way. Every new development is child of its time, talented people HAVE to meet with opportunity to generate extraordinary results, but I don't think Alan Kay is any more extraordinary as a human than anyone I work with, he just had an above average opportunity available to him and he seized it. Same for Page/Brin, find someone as smart as they were and try starting Google now, I bet it's not gonna go the same way.