Opening the Hood of a Word Processor (1984) [pdf]

This was a very interesting read. For the past few months I've been thinking a lot about the possibility of a workstation operating system that operated like a Lisp machine (disclaimer: I never used a Lisp machine; Lisp machines were before my time) and promoted GUI software that could be composed of independent, interconnected parts (like Unix pipes for the GUI). Since S-expressions are functions, they can be composed just like how two Unix commands can be composed by pipes (one could think of a Unix command as a function). Then I discovered that Smalltalk implemented many of the things that I like about Lisp machines (for example, the debugging environment), and later I discovered that Apple worked on a component-based framework for GUI applications called OpenDoc. This led me to think: what if there were an operating system that was inspired by the Smalltalk-80 environment, had a REPL for command-line usage, and had an OpenDoc-like API for developing GUI apps.

While doing some more reading about this area, I stumbled across this wonderful comment originally posted as a response to Miguel de Icaza's 2012 article "What Killed the Linux Desktop) that was preserved on Hacker News (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13573373). To summarize, perhaps the Linux desktop would have been more competitive if it promoted an OpenDoc-style component-based GUI that fits with the Unix philosophy and is more amenable to the development patterns of free and open-source software, rather than trying to compete head-on against Windows and macOS by adopting Windows-esque and macOS-esque GUIs. This resonated with me.

I believe that despite the much discussed notion that desktop computing is waning in influence as smartphones and tablets became popular, there is still room for a workstation-quality operating system that allows us to flexibly customize our workflows, and that a Smalltalk or Lisp base combined with an OpenDoc-like API would be an excellent platform to facilitate such a platform. I would be very interested in working on such a project, but coming from a Unix systems software research background, I'm still familiarizing myself with the body of work on Smalltalk, Lisp machines, and OpenDoc.

@dang Is it possible to get Alan Kay’s attention on this topic? I am sure many interesting questions would be asked if Alan is available to answer some of them.

Previous: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16349031

Previous submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16349031