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I'm sad that you got downvoted, though I have a feeling its simply your choice of language, as your points are spot on. This is a wonderfully curated list of wh

I'm sad that you got downvoted, though I have a feeling its simply your choice of language, as your points are spot on. This is a wonderfully curated list of where computers have come from. But to go further and claim that we're all somehow fools for not exploring new ideas without offering any overview of what a new idea might look like is disingenuous. Plenty of artists can dream up interfaces like in Minority Report, Tron, or Hackers, but to actually build something that achieves a human goal is much, much more difficult. For what it's worth, I think the Self object environment, Squeak smalltalk and Flow programming are beginning to approach the paradigm shift the author hopes for. But in the meantime, I'm communicating with all of you in words, so I might as well communicate with my computer in them as well.

gfodor 13y ago
Honestly I feel like this type of viewpoint is one that almost every programmer gets to after about 10 years doing real work. The difference is tact. Some hack out some experiments in new programming paradigms and some post detailed ideas or concepts of how things can be improved, and others just try to gain street cred by just saying everything is obviously shit and we are all fools for not "fixing" things.
- secstate 13y ago
  Well said, sir. Worth noting that this overview of where we've come from and how not far we've come was posted by a fellow is both clearly a genius, and who has his most popular github project written in x64 assembly. So I'd argue that even he sees the merit in the past when attempting to blaze a trail into the future. For one thing, as long as our computers are binary, they are going to require instructions in a very specific way and anything we put over the top of them will expose that architecture to some degree or another.
  - davidad_ 13y ago
    My entire article is about things that happened between 1955 and 1969. The part where I state my thesis literally concludes "With a solid historical perspective we can dare to do better." I'm not sure how much more obvious I could make it that I "see the merit in the past when attempting to blaze a trail into the future". It's the _present_ whose merit I find lacking.

gfodor 13y ago

Honestly I feel like this type of viewpoint is one that almost every programmer gets to after about 10 years doing real work. The difference is tact. Some hack out some experiments in new programming paradigms and some post detailed ideas or concepts of how things can be improved, and others just try to gain street cred by just saying everything is obviously shit and we are all fools for not "fixing" things.

secstate 13y ago
Well said, sir. Worth noting that this overview of where we've come from and how not far we've come was posted by a fellow is both clearly a genius, and who has his most popular github project written in x64 assembly. So I'd argue that even he sees the merit in the past when attempting to blaze a trail into the future. For one thing, as long as our computers are binary, they are going to require instructions in a very specific way and anything we put over the top of them will expose that architecture to some degree or another.
- davidad_ 13y ago
  My entire article is about things that happened between 1955 and 1969. The part where I state my thesis literally concludes "With a solid historical perspective we can dare to do better." I'm not sure how much more obvious I could make it that I "see the merit in the past when attempting to blaze a trail into the future". It's the _present_ whose merit I find lacking.