On 1/7/07, tim Rowledge <tim at rowledge.org> wrote:
>
>
> On 7-Jan-07, at 12:16 AM, stephane ducasse wrote:
>
> > I think that what is interesting is that people have the tools to
> > try new ideas even if you think  that they are idiot.
>
> Yes, that is good and interesting; the faster people ca try out ideas
> and discover which ones are bad, the better it is. As we used to say
> at Interval Research  - Fail Early, Fail Often.
>
> Squeak is definitely one of the tools I would consider valuable for
> this. So is SketchUp, so is the Doom Programmers Kit (or whatever it
> may be known as). So is modelling clay....
>
> And none of it stops me thinking that is a bad idea to
> photophysically emulate a bad way of working. Sure it's cool that you
> *can* do that that but that doesn't make it a good way of working.


Perhaps order, like most things is not always what it appears to be.
Organizing requires overhead and maintenance. Not all neat desktops are
efficient and some messy desktops are more effectively organized than
others. For example, there are many visual encodings in my messy desktop
that I can't figure out a "neat" way to do that doesn't require a lot of
overhead. I get phone calls, snail mail, physical folders and objects from
other people that don't fit neatly into an existing structure so they go
into piles. Proximity indicates overall priority. Nearness to the top of the
stack is a strong indicator of priority within the domain of that stack. A
stack is sticky - i.e. I can move a stack and it retains local spatial tags
along with a rough chronology and whatever color tags I may have used. I
have a sense of when my mess is getting unmanageable and things need to have
a neater, more structured arrangement. Piles that are really high, wide or
static probably need attention. Piles convey status info to me while on the
phone and when entering or leaving the room.  They have their downsides
especially for things that need to be shared but messy piles can be an
effective management tool.

Cheers,
Laurence

tim
> --
> tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
> Oscar Wilde: "Only the shallow know themselves."
>
>
>
>
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