5 ms·

Every time Douglas Engelbart is in the news, I reread Bret Victor's reminder of his goals. http://worrydream.com/Engelbart/ http://worrydream.com/Engelbart/

by chas 13y ago

adamio 13y ago
Victor points a software design that can be implemented, two mice, even two text cursors if designed that way. What about today's tools isn't alighted with Engelbart's vision? Everything? That seems a bit too broad
- icegreentea 13y ago
  Well, it's partly because the article is a bit narrow minded. Well, thats what I feel anyways. As the article rightfully points out, what matters is intent, not the actual technical means of implementation, or even how it appears. We do have modern "screen-sharing" applications with multiple cursors. Just take a look at Google Docs. The "problem" of today's tools is that computing technology went through this phase called the "PC" in which single-user interaction was all there was, and we went ahead and found efficient methods of single-user interaction, and then taught entire generations to think based on that metaphor.
  - gbhn 13y ago
    This is an excellent point, and I also think that Victor's interpretation of Engelbart's priorities is really interesting: what if we made computer tools powerful enough to enable high-bandwidth creative cooperation? Would that open up new areas of hyper-productive human activity that we've only sporadically seen up to now, when small groups of like-minded people happen to be put into a facilitating environment at the same time? What if that were the norm, because you could find such people -- right for you -- anywhere in the world, and work with them all your life, not just until this project funding ran out, or someone graduated, or got a new job, or whatever. That's what I think Bret Victor is aiming to find out, and that's why I think a lot of people are really excited by what he's saying.
  - meowface 13y ago
    I am curious what he thought of Google Docs. I agree that it seems very similar to the kind of collaboration he envisioned.
nsxwolf 13y ago
He loses me a bit when he starts talking about his intent. Englebart indeed demonstrated precursors to all these modern technologies, despite the author claiming otherwise. So he didn't demonstrate a precursor Skype and screen sharing, just because there's only one mouse pointer to control in Skype? Ok, fine. Then he demonstrated the precursor to Screenhero, which has multiple mouse pointers and embodies Englebart's intent exactly.
- asolove 13y ago
  The point Bret is making is deeper: Skype and Screenhero shouldn't have to be 'applications' that dig into mucky parts of the OS to try to get screen and pointer sharing to work. And even with those applications, other applications get wonky if they are used via screen-sharing. "Sharing" (of applications, data, peripherals, and capabilities like network storage) to be a first-level primitive provided by the system and all applications ought to be designed to work with it. Consider this: we're all connected via networks and bluetooth. So why can't I, in a simple way, let your mouse control my cursor? Or send just part of my screen to part of your screen on the OS level? Or have a photo library on my NAS that smartly caches things I look at often on my iPhone, syncing changes back when I edit a photo? Or share a vim session such that my mouse and keyboard follow my vimrc and yours follow yours? Why do these things have to be built in hacky ways, over and over, specific to individual applications rather than built as reusable building-blocks? We've gone to so much trouble to bolt sharing on to "personal" computers, when that whole idea is flawed. Engelbart's goal was to create a fundamentally networked system where the combined abilities of everyone would exceed the mere sum of their capacity. If Engelbart's vision were alive, we wouldn't be excited that we have Skype and screenhero. We'd ask, now that we have these things, how can we build software that uses them to get better outcomes? A medical tool the lets two doctors interact over a patient's EMR and rotate CAT scans together in a way that increases the odds that they get the right diagnosis? A pair programming method that finds more bugs, and gets better designs, more than just one person looking over another's shoulder? A spreadsheet that lets two business founders argue about their core assumptions and business model collaboratively? Read about the early history of computing to see examples of this. One that comes to mind is the timesharing systems in the early MIT AI lab, where there were no security systems. RMS talks about copying bits of code and configuration that he found in his professors' private folders, and the way that people would snoop on each other and build complex systems out of these shared parts.

Every time Douglas Engelbart is in the news, I reread Bret Victor's reminder of his goals. http://worrydream.com/Engelbart/ http://worrydream.com/Engelbart/

by chas 13y ago

Every time Douglas Engelbart is in the news, I reread Bret Victor's reminder of his goals. http://worrydream.com/Engelbart/ http://worrydream.com/Engelbart/

adamio 13y ago

Victor points a software design that can be implemented, two mice, even two text cursors if designed that way. What about today's tools isn't alighted with Engelbart's vision? Everything? That seems a bit too broad

icegreentea 13y ago
Well, it's partly because the article is a bit narrow minded. Well, thats what I feel anyways. As the article rightfully points out, what matters is intent, not the actual technical means of implementation, or even how it appears. We do have modern "screen-sharing" applications with multiple cursors. Just take a look at Google Docs. The "problem" of today's tools is that computing technology went through this phase called the "PC" in which single-user interaction was all there was, and we went ahead and found efficient methods of single-user interaction, and then taught entire generations to think based on that metaphor.
- gbhn 13y ago
  This is an excellent point, and I also think that Victor's interpretation of Engelbart's priorities is really interesting: what if we made computer tools powerful enough to enable high-bandwidth creative cooperation? Would that open up new areas of hyper-productive human activity that we've only sporadically seen up to now, when small groups of like-minded people happen to be put into a facilitating environment at the same time? What if that were the norm, because you could find such people -- right for you -- anywhere in the world, and work with them all your life, not just until this project funding ran out, or someone graduated, or got a new job, or whatever. That's what I think Bret Victor is aiming to find out, and that's why I think a lot of people are really excited by what he's saying.
- meowface 13y ago
  I am curious what he thought of Google Docs. I agree that it seems very similar to the kind of collaboration he envisioned.

nsxwolf 13y ago

He loses me a bit when he starts talking about his intent. Englebart indeed demonstrated precursors to all these modern technologies, despite the author claiming otherwise. So he didn't demonstrate a precursor Skype and screen sharing, just because there's only one mouse pointer to control in Skype? Ok, fine. Then he demonstrated the precursor to Screenhero, which has multiple mouse pointers and embodies Englebart's intent exactly.

asolove 13y ago
The point Bret is making is deeper: Skype and Screenhero shouldn't have to be 'applications' that dig into mucky parts of the OS to try to get screen and pointer sharing to work. And even with those applications, other applications get wonky if they are used via screen-sharing. "Sharing" (of applications, data, peripherals, and capabilities like network storage) to be a first-level primitive provided by the system and all applications ought to be designed to work with it. Consider this: we're all connected via networks and bluetooth. So why can't I, in a simple way, let your mouse control my cursor? Or send just part of my screen to part of your screen on the OS level? Or have a photo library on my NAS that smartly caches things I look at often on my iPhone, syncing changes back when I edit a photo? Or share a vim session such that my mouse and keyboard follow my vimrc and yours follow yours? Why do these things have to be built in hacky ways, over and over, specific to individual applications rather than built as reusable building-blocks? We've gone to so much trouble to bolt sharing on to "personal" computers, when that whole idea is flawed. Engelbart's goal was to create a fundamentally networked system where the combined abilities of everyone would exceed the mere sum of their capacity. If Engelbart's vision were alive, we wouldn't be excited that we have Skype and screenhero. We'd ask, now that we have these things, how can we build software that uses them to get better outcomes? A medical tool the lets two doctors interact over a patient's EMR and rotate CAT scans together in a way that increases the odds that they get the right diagnosis? A pair programming method that finds more bugs, and gets better designs, more than just one person looking over another's shoulder? A spreadsheet that lets two business founders argue about their core assumptions and business model collaboratively? Read about the early history of computing to see examples of this. One that comes to mind is the timesharing systems in the early MIT AI lab, where there were no security systems. RMS talks about copying bits of code and configuration that he found in his professors' private folders, and the way that people would snoop on each other and build complex systems out of these shared parts.