(That's not really my real name ... but does
it really matter? I mean, really?)
ALAN TURING, THE CELEBRATED
BRITISH COMPUTER AND CODES EXPERT, ONCE
WROTE (AND I QUOTE):
"This special property of digital computers, that
they
can mimic any discrete machine, is described by saying
that they are universal machines. The existence of
machines with this property has the important consequence
that considerations of speed apart, it is unnecessary to
design various new machines to do various computing
processes. They can all be done with one digital computer,
suitably programmed for each case."
The key words above, in case you haven't noticed, are: "suitably
programmed".
"Suitably programmed", eh?
Yeah, right. Like all of us know how to program a computer.
Look, I consider myself quite knowledgeable about computers.
(I use a Mac, don't I?) I can figure out how to use Hotline,
and can even work with Windows
-- when I have to. I can serve up Web pages, publish my
books in Adobe Acrobat
format, and jazz up my desktop with Kaleidoscope.I
can compose music in the
style of Bach and Mozart with a single click, and can fax
and phone from my
machine. I can scan in photos of my friends and transform
them into caricatures.
If I had the hardware, I could even edit videos.
But Program?!? Not for the life of me I couldn't.
Could you?
They say we use only 10 per cent of our brains, and that's
why most of us are
idiots. (If we aren't, why aren't we rolling in it?)
Well, I figure those, like me and
you, who can't do any programming, use maybe just 1 per
cent of our Mac!
Of course, if we just learned to program ... !
But who has the time -- or the inclination?
You programmers out there: this is a plea for help, from
"the rest of us".
What we -- the rest of us -- need is a program that
will enable us to create other programs, the way a word processor
creates documents.
And to do it just as easily as we type a letter. No: make
that much more easily.
Can this not be done? Come on now, don't tell me that.
If programmers can make a
MacOS and even a Rhapsody, they should be able to make
a program that will make programs. A program that will enable any of us
to become programmers.
I envision a future Mac that will allow me to type in (or
better, just speak) simple
instructions like the following:
(Me):"Computer: create for me a word processing
program."
(Computer):"Select from the displayed features"
(shows me a list, where I click on specific buttons for the features I
want, and only for those).
I hit Return, or click on OK, and the program
is created. I start work right away.
No fuss, no muss.
If I want more features, say for formatting, I type (or
say):
(Me): "Computer, please show me the features list
for formatting".
The computer does so, and I click on the extra features
I need.They are
incorporated right away into the word processing program
I am using, even
as I am using it (no need to quit and reopen the program).
Let's say now I need to fax what I've written. I type (or
say):
(Me): "Computer: I want to add faxing capabilities
to this program."
(Computer): "Please select from the displayed list
of features."
I select as many (or as few) features as I need, and the
computer adds just those to the word processing program, and no more.
A small window --
emphasis on small -- may also comeup with instructions
for using these
extra features.
The amount of new information at any one time is small,
and it comes only as I need it, so I am not inundated with
"Information Overload".
Of course, if I'm familiar with MS Word 98 already,
let's say, and would like ALL
its features right away, there should be a selection button
saying something like:
"Gimme all the existing features in MS Word 98".
I select that, and all those
features are added in one swell foop.
(Or is it swoop? soup? stew? Bouillabaisse? Whatever.)
The new features I want need not be limited to word processing.
For instance, I
could ask the computer to add 3D-modeling features, or music-composition
features,
or animated-movie-making features. But they'd all be as
well integrated into the
original program as the spreadsheet program in ClarisWorks
is integrated into the
word processing program. No: make that much better
integrated. All features
seamlessly working together.
In this way I keep on adding (or, on occasion, subtracting)
features to or from the ONE single program that I
use. I neveruse more than one program (unless I want to:
but
why in heaven's name would I want to?)
And the program I use is tailor made for me, at
whatever stage of expertise I happen
to be, from utter simpleton to friggin' expert!
Of course the program which allows me to CREATE programs
is common to all Macs
-- indeed, I suggest it be part and parcel of the MacOS.
(Integrated? Bundled?) So
any program I create with its help is one hundred per cent
compatible with ALL Macs.
It could also be made compatible with Windows and Unix programs.
There, of course,
the compatibility would not be one hundred per cent. But
that's in no way different from
today's situation. With Carbon, in fact, the situation
could be much better than today's,
even if not perfect.
And let's not forget the stability inherent in such a system!
Indeed, as
John Christie, one of my recent 'Net friends and an expert
in Human
Interface Design, pointed out when I showed him a draft
of this article:
"One of the best features you
leave out is that there would no need to be debugging massive programs. One only needs
to debug functions. The stability would shoot through the roof.
"And the Yellow Box in OS X in unusually
well suited to provide just this facility. Especially, with QuickTime
so embedded and advanced, and becoming a container format for any kind of media
(including styled text). There is no reason a QuickTime file cannot
be an entire document. If Apple wrote a properly AppleScriptable and attachable
QuickTime Movie Player with a complete list of nouns it would be very
easy for developers to add functionality to make it a WP, Quark competitor,
or Draw program, etc. Talk about starting on the 20th floor!"
Apple could make this "Über-App" (another
Christie term) updateable over
the Internet, so that as the list of features you can choose
from increases,
the updates are automatically added to it every time you
visit the Apple
Web site. And people should be encouraged to send in suggestions
as
to what features should be added, and the good suggestions
periodically
incorporated into the updates. (You know what my
first suggestion would be? A feature giving the user the ability to add more
features! With that, the list of potential features would be literally endless.)
(And, in my humble opinion, the updates should be free
for all users: after all, the suggestions are free for Apple, aren't they?)
But NOT a single ONE of these new features would be incorporated
into
the program the user actually uses, UNLESS the user specifically
wants
it to be incorporated, by selecting that feature and hitting
Return.
Thus the user's own program could be as simple as he or
she wants it. If all the user
wants is a bare bones text processor, even simpler than
Simple Text, he or she
should have it.
All the features you need, and none of those you
don't.For as Alan
Turing would have been happy to tell you, in your Macintosh
you have
a universal machine -- a machine that can do anything
you want, provided it is suitably programmed.
And finally, see how simple it is to use the "Mother
of
All Programs"? Just click on the features you want,
and
hit Return. No further instructions are needed
-- not
even a Help file, what to speak of a manual. Just
like
Mom. (Plant your lips on the nipple, and start sucking!
Even a newborn can do it.)
Simplicity.It's tomorrow's awesome future.
AND tomorrow's awesome feature!
... (not his real name -- but you figured that out already,
right?) ... calls himself a "Thinker", especially about the
future. He thinks that's where he'll be spending the rest
of his life (but who's he kidding, eh? Doesn't he realize
it's always going to be now?)
Most people say to him "You can't be serious" -- and they're
right, he can't. (But then, who can be serious about
the future, seeing as how anything can happen in it, and usually
does ... er, will?)
His best book -- indeed his only book -- is entitled The
Seventh Generation, and its shareware version in Adobe
Acrobat format is available for download from his alter-ego's
web site (under construction right now) at http://cpu2308.adsl.bellglobal.com.
It's all about the next 150 years or so, and where technology
might take us in that amount of time. (Just $5.00 -- cheap!
And well worth it, though he says so himself). Check it out.
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