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Instead of being introduced to a world full of self determination and limitless possibilities (as early computer adopters were), modern day users are shown a st

Instead of being introduced to a world full of self determination and limitless possibilities (as early computer adopters were), modern day users are shown a standard no-free-lunch world where "they either get you coming or going". Developers are still able to seek out freedom, but the goal of empowering an end user to solve their own problems couldn't be farther from sight. I couldn't agree more with this. However that dream seemed to die with the breakup of Alan Kay's original group. Nobody is even approaching this problem except perhaps Kay's own FONC group, and even that seems to be more academic than practical now. That said, I think that as digital culture matures as more generations grow up with digital creation, programmability will become the primary constraint, and then we might see progress in this area. If Apple doesn't keep up (although I expect they will), this is the domain I expect the killer app to emerge from. I'm not sure why you bring up the device-id thing. Apple corrected that issue without external pressure. Also, in the real world, I think that expecting end-users to manage a second cookie-like entity with subtly different semantics to cookies is unrealistic.

mindslight 15y ago
It's easy to point to Alan Kay's research and then wistfully say that it will hopefully bear fruit one day, but that actually does a disservice to anybody working on today's systems that treat the user as a mature, self-actualizing owner - whether they be creating new software or making existing software more user-friendly. A system that's built on a philosophy of eliminating capabilities can never progress into a system that allows a user to gradually learn more and empower themselves, as there's nothing "further down" that unifies the whole thing. Software that starts off requiring significant effort to administer can progress into having a user-friendly interface and be incorporated into systems with sensible defaults. One shouldn't require a user to have to configure everything out of the gate (say, cookie policy), but one shouldn't prevent them from doing things they know they want. Wasn't the Apple device-id thing "fixed" by only allowing tracking on a per-app basis? With cookies, I can have them deleted every time I close the page.
- rbarooah 15y ago
  It's easy to point to Alan Kay's research and then wistfully say that it will hopefully bear fruit one day, but that actually does a disservice to anybody working on today's systems that treat the user as a mature, self-actualizing owner - whether they be creating new software or making existing software more user-friendly. Setting the straw-men aside, which systems did you have in mind?

mindslight 15y ago

It's easy to point to Alan Kay's research and then wistfully say that it will hopefully bear fruit one day, but that actually does a disservice to anybody working on today's systems that treat the user as a mature, self-actualizing owner - whether they be creating new software or making existing software more user-friendly. A system that's built on a philosophy of eliminating capabilities can never progress into a system that allows a user to gradually learn more and empower themselves, as there's nothing "further down" that unifies the whole thing. Software that starts off requiring significant effort to administer can progress into having a user-friendly interface and be incorporated into systems with sensible defaults. One shouldn't require a user to have to configure everything out of the gate (say, cookie policy), but one shouldn't prevent them from doing things they know they want. Wasn't the Apple device-id thing "fixed" by only allowing tracking on a per-app basis? With cookies, I can have them deleted every time I close the page.

rbarooah 15y ago
It's easy to point to Alan Kay's research and then wistfully say that it will hopefully bear fruit one day, but that actually does a disservice to anybody working on today's systems that treat the user as a mature, self-actualizing owner - whether they be creating new software or making existing software more user-friendly. Setting the straw-men aside, which systems did you have in mind?