I think people understand the argument, they just don't fully agree with it. Personally, while I agree that we have ended up with a fairly poor universal VM, I find it to be a fascinating example of path dependency. Maybe we would be better off with one repository of hypertext and one well designed universal VM, but what path would we have taken to get there?
The hypertext repository was so compelling that everyone installed software to access it. Then that universally available software was so compelling that people found ways to run increasingly complex applications on it. And that's how we naturally found ourselves where we are today.
I don't see any reason to think that engineering a more perfect solution all at once would have worked better than this natural progression.
Well said. Kay's misunderstanding is that it could have been any different.
He thinks that you can just design something nice from whole cloth and people will use it. That's why his designs aren't deployed.
I've been looking at projects like OOVM and going back in history to Self and SmallTalk, and there's a reason that those things aren't deployed. Don't get me wrong -- they're certainly influential and valuable.
But he's basically confusing research and engineering, as if engineering wasn't even a thing, and you can just come up with stuff and have people use it because it's good. You need a balance of both to "change the world", and TBL has certainly done that.
Another analogy I use is complaining about the human body. Like "who designed this thing there there trachea and esophagus are so close together?!? What an idiot!!!" Or "why are all these people mentally ill and otherwise non-functional members of society? Who designed this crap?"
The point is that it couldn't have been any different. It wasn't designed; it was evolved.
>Another analogy I use is complaining about the human body. Like "who designed this thing there there trachea and esophagus are so close together?!? What an idiot!!!" Or "why are all these people mentally ill and otherwise non-functional members of society? Who designed this crap?"
Okay, so what's wrong with discussing the limitations of the human body and the ways to improve it then?
Yes, the web evolved instead of being designed (however much that distinction makes sense), but arrived at a shi^H^H^H suboptimal result. And it arrived there through deliberate design decisions of people - who unfortunately were designing a different system in the first place.
It's like English. I love English, but it's a bloody mess that we're all stuck with now - except that changing a computer system is comparatively easy to changing the direction of a language.
It's great to discuss ways to improve things, but that is different than suggesting that the whole thing is rotten to the core and needs a re-work from the ground up. The productive way to do this is to identify specific deficiencies and propose targeted incremental improvements to address them. This is what all the people involved in various standards and implementations on the web have been doing for years. This is working, progress is just slow and difficult, as it is with most things that are worth doing.
>He thinks that you can just design something nice from whole cloth and people will use it.
Because that's exactly what they did in Xerox Park, many times over.
>That's why his designs aren't deployed.
No comment.
>But he's basically confusing research and engineering, as if engineering wasn't even a thing, and you can just come up with stuff and have people use it because it's good.
Kay has many talks about the difference between invention and innovation (which are much better terms than ones you're using). In fact, his analysis of this difference is probably the most insightful and though-provoking technology talk I have ever seen:
Of course, this subject makes a lot of developers highly uncomfortable, hence a lot of shallow, ignorant, knee-jerk dismissals. "Everything is incremental." "Everything is the only way it could be." "This is fine." And so on. Thing is, Kay worked at Xerox and Apple. He read a myriad of books and research papers on computing, which he constantly references in his talks and writings. He worked and continues to work with some of the most forward-thinking people in the field of computing. In late eighties he foresaw most of the current computing trends - which is verifiable via YouTube. Even without any context his talks display a considerable depth of thought. In short: unlike some people, he actually knows what he is talking about.
>The point is that it couldn't have been any different. It wasn't designed; it was evolved.
And that is why someone who designed it just received a Turing award. Makes perfect sense.
Edit:
Regarding your other comment here.
>If the web is a genius for hypertext, but not for app delivery, then he should have just said so. That is not a very hard sentiment to express. "The Web was done by Amateurs" doesn't capture it.
He has several decades worth of talks and writing. If you haven't bothered to familiarize yourself with at least some of them to understand what he means it's your own fault.
The hypertext repository was so compelling that everyone installed software to access it. Then that universally available software was so compelling that people found ways to run increasingly complex applications on it. And that's how we naturally found ourselves where we are today.
I don't see any reason to think that engineering a more perfect solution all at once would have worked better than this natural progression.