4 ms·

My recent study of history leads me to conclude that had Douglas Engelbart[1] been allowed to keep working on NLS[2], we'd have gotten a far better result. Inst

My recent study of history leads me to conclude that had Douglas Engelbart[1] been allowed to keep working on NLS[2], we'd have gotten a far better result. Instead his staff was poached, and PARC was the far less than optimal result. History shows time and time again that the best outcome rarely happens. We still don't have a Memex[3] as proposed by Bush in 1945. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Engelbart https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Engelbart 2 - https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/timeline/nls https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/timeline/nls 3 - https://www.darpa.mil/program/memex https://www.darpa.mil/program/memex

kkfx 4y ago
"optimal" results are a fallacious indicator: optimal for now can mean a disaster in the near future, think about the actual just-in-time industry crisis for instance. I do not say that's was happen since I do not really know nor NLS (of course I've seen the Mother of all the demos, but not much more especially in technical terms) nor Smalltalk workstations (I've dig a bit more there, emulation included, but lacking comparison with NLS...) however is a generally valid principles: in nature it does not win the better but the more adaptive. In humans terms some very good stuff might simply fade into oblivion because they are too ahead of their time for most people or are against someone's interests. To spot a more modern example maybe a bit more easy to know by most HN-ers just see Java history, it's original idea and the subsequent practical fail due to the fact nobody really care the original idea adopting instead just the boilerplate. Plan 9 was another example. IMVHO the real points was: - pioneers have seen desktop computers, not services, with the human at the center, not a vendor or a service, more specifically connected people with powerful tool some in politics is named social tissue needed for democracy, something essentially all élites from all countries fear most; - pioneers have cared about their idea, vision, not much their present time short terms needs, as a result most people have no idea about the future they envisage and have tried to meld what they are told about the future to their present created ridiculous stuff and encouraging some to go that way (see General Magik virtual office for instance); - pioneers have not cared at all about scaling their gear, witch means how to make them en masse, creating a supply chain, ... as a result profiting from them was essentially an artisanal game no one can really sustain and at government level no one is much interested either. Another today examples: we have seen in the recent 50+ years past various efforts to make small, cheap VTOL aircrafts, i.e. "flying cars". Now we see even financial institutions embracing them in their sauce, well so far such experiments have proven feasible and to a certain extent VERY interested for all. So far most think they are impossible. Useless. Unsafe. .... As a result the general reactionary behaviors of essentially any large community from élites (who feel well in general and fear loosing their status if something change) to generic human beings (who generally think the change is bad, not needed, they simply fear it if is a real change) annihilate or at least postpone in a very far future any real revolution. Culture is typically the mean to make things happen but so far we seems to be unable (beside the fact that most do NOT want that happen) to really spread a substantial culture though the masses. We know how to do that in small cohort but not in larger ones. We still miss a way to connect those small cohort to the humanity enough to make the magic happen...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jasonhong 4y ago
I've studied HCI and Engelbart's work for quite a long time, and I'm not sure I would fully agree that things would have been better had Engelbart continued working on NLS, or if NLS had won out. One simple example is with copy and paste. NLS had a highly complex and error prone copy-and-paste system. A lot of the commands in NLS were modal (vs modeless), and thus error prone. See this article for more info: http://worrydream.com/refs/Tesler%20-%20A%20Personal%20History%20of%20Modeless%20Text%20Editing%20and%20Cut-Copy-Paste.pdf http://worrydream.com/refs/Tesler%20-%20A%20Personal%20Histo... Another issue was basic usability of NLS. Engelbart's vision was on continuous bootstrapping, continually aiming to create more powerful and expressive systems. This vision was pretty good for technical people, but also comes at the cost of basic ease of use and entry for newcomers. For instance, think about how many problems non-technical people still have with today's PCs and smartphones, many of which strive for "walk up and use" kind of usage. Having been in research for over two decades now, my position is that we researchers will often identify the right problem and get the right general direction, but not always the right form. For instance, in the late 90s at Berkeley, folks correctly identified cluster computing as the future, and that we should aim to create abstractions to host Internet services to make them more scalable and robust. The specifics went in a very different direction (e.g. cloud computing, Kubernetes, etc), but the general thrust was right. As another example, my colleagues and I correctly identified rapid prototyping and testing tools for user interfaces as a major need, and while we inspired a lot of ideas with our work (pen-based sketching), industry went in a very different direction (see Figma and Axure and InVision). I think the same is true with Engelbart's work. He was definitely a pioneer and helped open up people's imaginations as to what was possible with computing, but was off on a lot of the details and specifics that really matter for adoption. And that's ok because to a large extent, that's one of the many reasons we as a community and society do research.
- mikewarot 4y ago
  I've heard that some people objected to his strong focus on "bootstrapping". In some ways, maybe we avoided a repeat of Babbage and his continual push towards something better at the cost of completion. It's hard to know from this perspective where the truth of the matter lies.
- 4y ago

kkfx 4y ago

"optimal" results are a fallacious indicator: optimal for now can mean a disaster in the near future, think about the actual just-in-time industry crisis for instance. I do not say that's was happen since I do not really know nor NLS (of course I've seen the Mother of all the demos, but not much more especially in technical terms) nor Smalltalk workstations (I've dig a bit more there, emulation included, but lacking comparison with NLS...) however is a generally valid principles: in nature it does not win the better but the more adaptive. In humans terms some very good stuff might simply fade into oblivion because they are too ahead of their time for most people or are against someone's interests. To spot a more modern example maybe a bit more easy to know by most HN-ers just see Java history, it's original idea and the subsequent practical fail due to the fact nobody really care the original idea adopting instead just the boilerplate. Plan 9 was another example. IMVHO the real points was: - pioneers have seen desktop computers, not services, with the human at the center, not a vendor or a service, more specifically connected people with powerful tool some in politics is named social tissue needed for democracy, something essentially all élites from all countries fear most; - pioneers have cared about their idea, vision, not much their present time short terms needs, as a result most people have no idea about the future they envisage and have tried to meld what they are told about the future to their present created ridiculous stuff and encouraging some to go that way (see General Magik virtual office for instance); - pioneers have not cared at all about scaling their gear, witch means how to make them en masse, creating a supply chain, ... as a result profiting from them was essentially an artisanal game no one can really sustain and at government level no one is much interested either. Another today examples: we have seen in the recent 50+ years past various efforts to make small, cheap VTOL aircrafts, i.e. "flying cars". Now we see even financial institutions embracing them in their sauce, well so far such experiments have proven feasible and to a certain extent VERY interested for all. So far most think they are impossible. Useless. Unsafe. .... As a result the general reactionary behaviors of essentially any large community from élites (who feel well in general and fear loosing their status if something change) to generic human beings (who generally think the change is bad, not needed, they simply fear it if is a real change) annihilate or at least postpone in a very far future any real revolution. Culture is typically the mean to make things happen but so far we seems to be unable (beside the fact that most do NOT want that happen) to really spread a substantial culture though the masses. We know how to do that in small cohort but not in larger ones. We still miss a way to connect those small cohort to the humanity enough to make the magic happen...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

jasonhong 4y ago

I've studied HCI and Engelbart's work for quite a long time, and I'm not sure I would fully agree that things would have been better had Engelbart continued working on NLS, or if NLS had won out. One simple example is with copy and paste. NLS had a highly complex and error prone copy-and-paste system. A lot of the commands in NLS were modal (vs modeless), and thus error prone. See this article for more info: http://worrydream.com/refs/Tesler%20-%20A%20Personal%20History%20of%20Modeless%20Text%20Editing%20and%20Cut-Copy-Paste.pdf http://worrydream.com/refs/Tesler%20-%20A%20Personal%20Histo... Another issue was basic usability of NLS. Engelbart's vision was on continuous bootstrapping, continually aiming to create more powerful and expressive systems. This vision was pretty good for technical people, but also comes at the cost of basic ease of use and entry for newcomers. For instance, think about how many problems non-technical people still have with today's PCs and smartphones, many of which strive for "walk up and use" kind of usage. Having been in research for over two decades now, my position is that we researchers will often identify the right problem and get the right general direction, but not always the right form. For instance, in the late 90s at Berkeley, folks correctly identified cluster computing as the future, and that we should aim to create abstractions to host Internet services to make them more scalable and robust. The specifics went in a very different direction (e.g. cloud computing, Kubernetes, etc), but the general thrust was right. As another example, my colleagues and I correctly identified rapid prototyping and testing tools for user interfaces as a major need, and while we inspired a lot of ideas with our work (pen-based sketching), industry went in a very different direction (see Figma and Axure and InVision). I think the same is true with Engelbart's work. He was definitely a pioneer and helped open up people's imaginations as to what was possible with computing, but was off on a lot of the details and specifics that really matter for adoption. And that's ok because to a large extent, that's one of the many reasons we as a community and society do research.

mikewarot 4y ago
I've heard that some people objected to his strong focus on "bootstrapping". In some ways, maybe we avoided a repeat of Babbage and his continual push towards something better at the cost of completion. It's hard to know from this perspective where the truth of the matter lies.
4y ago