Jonathon --

Don Norman and I used to argue about this all the time, and, as usual, he
completely misses the point. It's not whether a car will get you from A to
B without you having to understand internal combustion, but whether (1) you
can thus afford not to exercise, and (2) whether you can thus afford not to
understand science and technology. There is a huge difference between what
people "want" and what they (and civilization) "needs". (This makes a
bicycle a pretty good piece of technology, since it still allows you to go
flat out and it then amplifies THAT. This is why the old Apple mantra
"wheels for the mind" with a bike as the associated image was a pretty good
metaphor.)
     Technology brings the need for new ethical systems (or at least
extensions) because they bring new choices we now have to make that Nature
used to take care of automatically (e.g. exercise via saber toothed
tigers). This is just as true for intellectual tools as it is for those
that give us new leverages in the physical world ...
     Don can't separate out stupid user interfaces with gratuitously
difficult properties (like most VCRs) from those in which the difficulties
aren't gratuitous but eventually pay off big (like a violin). The same
thing is true of mathematics, science, and other arts, and even reading and
writing: we don't want gratuitous difficulties, but instead want (and need)
difficulties that change us for the better when we learn to surmount them.

Cheers,

Alan

-----

At 5:08 AM -0000 12/13/98, Jonathan A. Smith wrote:
>Hi Stefano Franchi,
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Stefano Franchi [mailto:franchi at csli.Stanford.EDU]
>> Sent: Saturday, December 12, 1998 2:45 PM
> . . .
>> This is true only if we hold fast to the analogy programming/~/writing. In
>> fact what society seems to have decided is that the analogy is false, that
>> computers are just a very sophisticated tool substantially analogous to
>> cars, whose design and production should be left to the specialists, and
>> that programming is as genral purpose as mechanical drafting.
>>
>> How do I hope to be proved wrong!
>
>I started programming as a teenager in the late 70s using PDP11s (RSTS/E).
>I do not remember adults having to do much to get us started.  They just
>pointed us at the machine and we went on to learn everything we could. We
>created our own society of programmers.  The computer seemed alive in a way,
>and our small society of programmers was even livelier.  We were usually
>working on several interesting projects.  The excitement was not just a
>product of the technology but as much a result of being part of a group of
>intellectually engaged teens who were excited and optimistic about the
>future.  I wish more people could have that experience.
>
>In a way you are right.  The trend seems to be going against everyday
>programming.  When I started math and science were what you did with
>computers.  That has changed and continues to change.  Increasingly
>computers are about communications, marketing, writing, art, and a little
>bit of accounting.  No need for programming.
>
>Perhaps things will go the way Donald Norman predicts and computers as such
>will become less visible and more part of the background infrastructure.
>Then no one will bother programming because, well, there will be lots of
>small information appliances around.  No one will have a computer to
>program.  (And perhaps that also marks the difference between the Smalltalk
>and Java design philosophies.)
>
>I wouldn't bet on it.  As much as I am very enthusiastic about most of
>Norman's ideas I think he does not seem to recognize the degree to which
>many people conceptualize their computers as an extension of their physical
>and social space.  We have partially moved our households on to our hard
>drives and our networks.  Our study room doors open out on to the World Wide
>Web.  We use virtual information appliances in this conceptual space as much
>as we use physical appliances in physical space.  The computer as space
>depends on fluidity and flexibility that can only exist if our computers
>continue to be general purpose programmable machines.
>
>Ultimately the only way to take control of one's information space is by
>programming.  (It may be called authoring, scripting, spreadsheet formulas
>and macros, dynamic web page design, simulation modeling, writing applets,
>math package notebooks, setting up shortcuts, or even organizing your
>bookmarks.)  If there are good tools that can take someone from simple
>scripting all the way to exploring engaging ideas, some people will make
>that journey.  Over time there will be a more interesting body of literature
>in the form of programs, and others will want to explore that literature.
>
>
>Jonathan
>
>
>PS.  My comments about Donald Norman's ideas come from reading only about
>half of his recent "The Invisible Computer."  When I have more time I really
>should finish it.