[Edu-sig] Alan Kay - another one of his ideas

[Guido van Rossum]

On 7/13/06, Andreas Raab <andreas.raab at gmx.de> wrote:
> Guido van Rossum wrote:
> > There we go again. You are surrounded by geeks so obviously you don't
> > realize this any more, but do you have *any* idea how privileged you
> > were to have a computer in the early 80s?
>
> In what way is this relevant for our discussion? Unless you want me to
> pretend that prior art doesn't exist, I don't see much relevance in that
> observation ;-)

In my line of reasoning, the WWW isn't taking anything away because
99% of its users didn't have any computer access before the WWW. So
I'm objecting against your "proof" that the WWW took away what you had
on the C16 based on the C16's superior capacity; that's like blaming
modern medicine for world hunger.

> [But just to answer your question: Yes I have a pretty good idea about
> it, simply because at the time and place it was pointed out to me over
> and over and over again]

Poor you. :-)

> > You're comparing apples and oranges. People can still do whatever you
> > did on that C16 if they have a PC at home, no WWW needed. And there
> > are a lot more PCs and they are a lot cheaper. The WWW is just icing
> > on the cake.
>
> I am not comparing apples and oranges, I am comparing platforms. And
> that last statement shows precisely where we differ. I don't look at the
> web as just icing on the cake, to me it's not a supplementary medium. To
> me it's the whole deal, a platform in and of its own. And when you
> compare the platforms, the web (maybe with a PC terminal for access) and
> my C16 you'll find pretty quickly there are lots of things that you
> can't do on the web. Just go into one of them Internet-Cafes and try
> installing some software of your own choosing. Or, even worse, try this
> in a corporate or school setting. You'll notice quickly that you don't
> have a platform - you have a terminal and the web is the platform.

The platforms differ. You seem to forget all the things you couldn't
do with a C16 that are effortless on the WWW (like sharing something
you wrote with millions of people, or storing thousands of 1000x1600
color photographs, or email).

> > Why do you keep referring to blogs as limited? They are a 1000x more
> > versatile and accessible than the word processors of the 80s and 90s.
> > You seem to be forgetting that.
>
> Peace. I said "limited authoring capabilities" and given that even today
> most blog hosting services offer little more than an input field for
> writing HTML code I think I can defend that position ;-)

Did your C16 support hyperlinks, multiple fonts, sizes, colors and
automatic table lay-out?

> > I'm all for wanting to improve the web. I just don't accept the claim
> > that it's somehow a regression.
>
> That's because you are comparing Apples and Oranges, and I am comparing
> platforms.

Let's just agree that it's a different perspective. I still think the
claim that the WWW is a regression is only possible from a very
privileged POV.

> > I've had a hard time finding the exact software that was used here. I
> > found a Squeak installer that was supposed to run in my browser but
> > didn't install correctly on my PowerBook. Could you publish some
> > fool-proof URLs for people to experiment with?
>
> I'm not sure which "exact software" you are referring to, we've been
> touching a couple of things in this discussion.

Well, for a start I'd like to see what Alan Kay used in his keynote.
I'm guessing that's Logowiki.

> For Logowiki,
> http://logowiki.net is the reference and there is no plugin required.
> For Squeak itself, there is Squeak.org which does not offer a webbrowser
> plugin installation. Our educational site, Squeakland.org offers such an
> install, see http://www.squeakland.org/plugin/download.html which is a
> custom Squeak version intended for use with eToys.

And eToys itself? The web of different/similar sites is confusing. A
taxonomy of the Squeak world would be helpful.

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)