Antoine Pitrou writes:
Terry Reedy <tjreedy <at> udel.edu> writes:
I watched and was greatly impressed by the video demo of Google's new Wave collaborative communication system. I believe it would/will help with some of the chronic problems we (and others) have.
I really don't think technical systems are an answer to social issues. It's a flaw of the engineering mindset.
That depends on the definition of "problem". For example, if the problem is "half our people detest web interfaces and want to discuss issues by email", then "Roundup: nosy list" *is* a technical system that is an answer. I agree that Terry wasn't particularly specific about what impressed him and how it would help for what problem. But rather than just say "technology is not a universal answer", we should ask "what problem does this address?" (Personally, I'm satisfied from the example Terry gave that he had the "summarizing the opinions of those whose opinions we respect in this domain" problem in mind, and I think there *are* technical solutions to that. Terry?)