Today's Horrible Computer World

HCW

98.11.16 ( d3

Today's Horrible Computer World
A work in progress. ©1998 T.Nelson

"The computer world is like a great big toy store. But all the toys are broken." Steve Witham

"Microsoft is not the problem. Microsoft is the symptom." Eric S. Raymond

"If houses were built the way computers are built, the first woodpecker would bring down civilization." Anon

Jay Osako's angry post, with which I agree

Note that these are not empty criticisms thrown out without alternatives. In my designs over the years I have proposed principled alternatives. Finally it is possible to see some of my designs in preliminary implementations.

The dirty little secret: The computer world is an incredible uphill mess. Nobody's life has been simplified by computers.

When I published Computer Lib in 1974, computers were big oppressive systems off in airconditioned rooms. In the 1987 edition of Computer Lib-- the Microsoft edition!-- I wrote, "Now you can be oppressed in your own living room!" It has gotten far worse.

The Mercedes and Your Family
THE GOOD NEWS: They say: "If cars had improved as much as computers, a Mercedes-Benz would cost ten dollars, go ten thousand miles on a liter of gas, and go a thousand miles an hour.

THE BAD NEWS: ... and if you had such a Mercedes-Benz, it would stop unexpectedly, and your family would be missing from the back seat. Forever.

THE DREAM WE ALL SHARED
Computers would make it easy to save information keep track of things, and manage creative work.

THE REALITY.
A nightmare.

THE TYRANNY OF THE FILE

THE CRIME OF WYSIWYG

THE PRISON OF "APPLICATIONS"

The Tyranny of the File

The Folly of Metaphors

The Blight of Applications

THE FINAL ABOMINATION: the "clipboard"

COMPUTER HELLS

INSTALLATION HELL
UPGRADE HELL
SOFTWARE CONFLICT HELL
HARDWARE CONFLICT HELL
BACKUP HELL

CONFLICTING PACKAGES
CONFLICTING RULE-SYSTEMS

GEEK AESTHETICS
MIDI
WP
MIDI a Geek's notion of music, word processing a Geek's notion of what writers need-- in both cases DELUDED BY THE NOTATION, thinking the notation is the inner reality.

Software:
OVERLAPPING AND CONTRADICTORY PACKAGES with CONFLICTING SETS OF RULES

THE THOUSANDS OF PERSON-YEARS WASTED
MILLIONS OF CREATIVE EFFORTS DESTROYED

Five minutes to start up your computer! Times a hundred million: EVERY DAY 500 MILLION PERSON-MINUTES WASTED JUST ON STARTUP! And that's without mentioning crashes...