Cees --

At 9:07 PM +0100 2/17/01, Cees de Groot wrote:
>Alan Kay <Alan.Kay at disney.com> said:

-- snip --

>OTOH, these form programs (IE, Netscape) do cooperate with native window
>management and put that to use by using multiple native windows to present
>information. As I said, that's probably the thing I miss most in Squeak.

Well, anyone who really wants such a thing needs only ASMOP

>  >Also, you may be aware that SqC in its earlier form at Xerox PARC
>>originated many of the ideas that are now used in "standard" GUIs. I
>>think that earns us the right to say that "Neither current UIs nor
>>Squeak's current UI are any good".
>
>Absolutely! And as I'd be totally out of my league discussing UI's and HCI
>with you I am doing my best to sidestep that issue ;-)

Well, I think we have earned the right to be critical, but you can't 
earn the "right to be correct". By that I mean that the ant traveling 
along can eventually gather enough evidence that he is on the wrong 
course, but this presents him with 359 other choices of which only 
one or two might be good. So it is much easier to criticize and be 
right, than to turn the criticism into a better design. The power of 
Open Source is that we may get some of the most important ideas from 
previously unknown sources (especially if y'all would start thinking 
about some of the bigger issues .....).

>
>>The real romance is out ahead and yet to
>>come. The computer revolution hasn't started yet. Don't be misled by
>>the enormous flow of money into bad defacto standards for
>>unsophisticated buyers using poor adaptations of incomplete ideas.
>>
>Don't worry. I know next to nothing about HCI but I do know that things like
>the time wall (Xerox, wasn't it?), the event horizon user interface (Sun) and
>even life streams (Gelernter) point to better UI times. As I said, Squeak
>really shows off some things here and I'm thrilled to see what is coming.

For example, let's not even worry about the windows aspects. What 
Squeak really needs is an interface that easily discloses what it 
does to any user. It needs an interface that can help any user learn 
what it has. If you look at the 4000 odd classes (too many) and the 
40,000 odd methods (too many), there is a kind of computer science 
curriculum buried in the artifact itself, but one shouldn't have to 
do archeology of the Egyptian Tomb Opening sort to find out 
something. Dan Ingalls likes to say that the system is the 
curriculum. I like to say that the curriculum should be the system. 
That is, there are great opportunities to advance many kinds of 
learning here, in part with a better user interface. For example, why 
shouldn't we have in the grand old year of 2001 or 2002, an interface 
that can watch what a learner is trying to do and actually help them!
      These are differences of dimension from the ways that UIs are 
usually compaired today.

>
>The dillemma: Squeak is a great generic ST platform too. It hurts to see
>lots of young people growing up with the idea that Java is the greatest
>thing out there, but I cannot step in and tell them to work with Squeak
>because they would insist on a more, err, moderate user interface -
>if not for them, then for the applications they produce with it. Giving
>Squeak the ability to interact with local window managers, font managers
>and let it present itself with a "skin" that's closer to the rest of
>the platform would be a very important stepping stone.

And that's what Open Source is for. Different strokes for different 
folks. I would not at all be surprised to see folks on the Squeak 
list do various adaptations to native UIs. I'm much more interested 
in trying to find ways to help children grow up thinking better than 
most adults today ....

Cheers,

Alan