@zensaiyuki There are multiple free software implementations of BASIC and the Excel file format's successor ODF. Only two free software implementations remain of the full web platform, because it is too complex. Which one is more proprietary in practice?
HyperCard has been forgotten, sadly. It will probably conceptually form part of the base for whatever comes next.
HyperCard has been forgotten, sadly. It will probably conceptually form part of the base for whatever comes next.
@zensaiyuki @Shamar @nepfag @petit
Free software doesn't have to mean a design free-for-all.
HTML is fragmented and has market share because Worse Is Better, and it has been very productive. But we are not talking about what's more productive.
We are talking about what's conceptually clean, usable and programmable for the casual end user, grokkable. HTML is not it.
With what we have learned from over two decades of web, we are armed with the knowledge to create a Better Is Better alternative.
@grainloom @zenhack @xj9
Free software doesn't have to mean a design free-for-all.
HTML is fragmented and has market share because Worse Is Better, and it has been very productive. But we are not talking about what's more productive.
We are talking about what's conceptually clean, usable and programmable for the casual end user, grokkable. HTML is not it.
With what we have learned from over two decades of web, we are armed with the knowledge to create a Better Is Better alternative.
@grainloom @zenhack @xj9
@clacke @nepfag @petit @grainloom @Shamar @zensaiyuki @zenhack @xj9
> With what we have learned from over two decades of web, we are armed with the knowledge to create a Better Is Better alternative.
I'd like to offer a different perspective here, because I agree with everything in your toot/note until above point
the worse-is-better approach wins for the same reasons that Unix and Windows had won (in a way...), and why there are so many software developers and so few software engineers. in my opinion, that reason is: slightly worse is cheaper, but quicker to deliver
there were Lisp Machines, but they were killed by copyright, politics and perhaps more, while simpler equipment is still there. there was OS/2, but Win95 was quicker to roll out. there was VAX and VMS, there was Sun (long live ZFS!)...
so to deeliver anything sophisticated, we'll need to come up with something even better, even more ideal and cleaner, propose using it, and then have the clean-and-still-sophisticated alternative as a backup plan in case the ideal doesn't work out (because it won't)
one final thought: does the typical end-user want that Better? that Right Thing? I'm afraid they don't. they want it to be easy to use, with no thinking involved... and I don't want to see the results of programming without thinking...
> With what we have learned from over two decades of web, we are armed with the knowledge to create a Better Is Better alternative.
I'd like to offer a different perspective here, because I agree with everything in your toot/note until above point
the worse-is-better approach wins for the same reasons that Unix and Windows had won (in a way...), and why there are so many software developers and so few software engineers. in my opinion, that reason is: slightly worse is cheaper, but quicker to deliver
there were Lisp Machines, but they were killed by copyright, politics and perhaps more, while simpler equipment is still there. there was OS/2, but Win95 was quicker to roll out. there was VAX and VMS, there was Sun (long live ZFS!)...
so to deeliver anything sophisticated, we'll need to come up with something even better, even more ideal and cleaner, propose using it, and then have the clean-and-still-sophisticated alternative as a backup plan in case the ideal doesn't work out (because it won't)
one final thought: does the typical end-user want that Better? that Right Thing? I'm afraid they don't. they want it to be easy to use, with no thinking involved... and I don't want to see the results of programming without thinking...
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I think people don't need the right solution (since nothing is right in every context) but they shouldn't have to accept the worse one.
My take is that we should follow a different paradigm: http://jehanne.io/2018/11/15/simplicity-awakes.html
@pfm@edolas.world
@Shamar thanks for the link, I'll read that another day :)
