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This is pretty shortsighted. It's not the simple case of "what you can already do with two tools" that we should be thinking about. It's that stuff that you can
by calinet6 13y ago
This is pretty shortsighted. It's not the simple case of "what you can already do with two tools" that we should be thinking about. It's that stuff that you can't even imagine was possible until it integrated, in the same place, and with a good user experience.
You'll have information that's right in front of your eyes where before, the tiniest wall of separation was barrier enough to make it inaccessible or out of mind. Things will become the same, instead of just both being in the same place. This is the essence of good UX, and it has nothing to do with this specific case, but it will emerge from simple cases like this. First two things coexist, then they share, then they become one.
For a while, the iPhone was just a phone and a computer. People even said the same exact thing you just did: "why is having a phone and a palm pilot in one device any better than having them separate?" Then they started sharing features, the internet became pervasively accessible. Then everything started sharing data and features. And now we can't imagine them separate, and we have an entirely new class of thing that came out of it that basically enabled a revolution.
Eventually programming could be the same. Programmers probably have the highest tolerance I know of for compartmentalization of tasks and poor interaction design and data visualization: they are extremely intelligent and have the ability to tie things together in their heads and break down tasks and tools ad hoc. But when you don't have to do that, when programming becomes easier and more fluid, things will start happening that simply couldn't before.
We can only dream of the kinds of advancements in our tools that are yet to come.