Item — HN Reader

It doesn't seem that, in practice, users want to modify their computer systems in that way

Don't confuse core product with actual product. If, before the 20th century, you had asked people if they wanted to partake in mechanical flight, they would have most certainly said no. They couldn't distinguish a core product that would differ significantly from the current actual product of a bicycle with wire-wings.

Kay was right. And there are people out there right now, on the equivalent of a crisp morning at Kittyhawk, trying, and trying, and trying to prove it.

1 comments

Apt example, given that in the century since the Wright Brothers' first flight most of the people who have ridden in aircraft have had no desire to modify them.

An airplane is something to get us from one place to another.

A computer is a tool that helps us wonder. If you can open it up in a clear, abstractable, safe way, there doesn't have to be limits to that wondering.

A computer is a tool that helps us wonder.

And flying isn't? Surely it is for some, just as for some it is "merely" a tool for transportation.

A computer is a tool that helps us wonder.

So is a book. You don't have to be able to program The Little Prince or The Way Things Work in order for it to help you wonder.

A computer is a tool that helps us wonder.

And my mom wonders why it keeps crashing when she tries to check her email. I tried to explain how important it was that she had the freedom to fix the bug herself, but she won't listen. She foolishly is only concerned with checking her email.

If you can X...

Which is to say X is not yet a solved problem, or even one known to have a solution. In the meantime: Forgive us all who dare persist contentedly with balloons and dirigibles.

I think this is getting us nowhere, but ok, I'll try again.

Flying and books incite us to wonder. A computer can assist us in wondering. It can enable us to explore ideas. That's the potential of the computer and that's what Alan's Dynabook was promising.

Sure, we can rip out functionality until we have a computer that is so pretty and simple that a monkey can use it, but that's not fulfilling the promise that computers hold. That's not what Alan was talking about.

Forgive us all who dare persist contentedly with balloons

You're forgiven. (Just not tolerated well on a place like HN. :-)

Sure, we can rip out functionality until we have a computer that is so pretty and simple that a monkey can use it...

So now my mother is a monkey? Come on now, you're exaggerating.

Your mother is a monkey!

But seriously, I apologize if I went over the top. I understand and respect what you're saying. There's nothing wrong with getting the current state-of-the-art stable and usable; I shouldn't have intimated otherwise.

Edit: And don't tell your mom what I said or she'll tell my mom, and then I'll get it.