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Comment by alsothrownaway | Hacker News Reader

It's strange to witness what is essentially a working version of Google Hangouts and Google Docs ... from fifty years ago.

We're definitely doing something wrong.

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This strikes a nerve.

I had the good fortune to be able to work with xBase languages (predominantly CA-Clipper) when I began programming. I made software for retail outlets: pos, inventory, accounts, all the jazz. The most memorable thing to me was the Phone Directory we shipped with it. It did one thing right: `set filter to cSearch $ upper( rtrim( ltrim( name + phone ) ) )`. This is a case-insensitive regex match over both name and phone. Customers used it all the time, and they held that db close to their hearts. It was 50 lines of code written in an afternoon and just worked ever after.

Creating a phone directory with that affordance is a lot of work today. However user interfaces are different today. 80s DOS text mode only had a keyboard input, a 16-color palette, 80 columns over 25 rows, and just text, text, text. Modern web UI is event-driven, has millions of colors, works across screen sizes, and is networked by default.

Though with this essential complexity, there is so much accidental complexity. It shouldn't be this hard to build software. The essence of a double-entry bookkeeping software 30 years ago is the same as one we build today. A new framework is probably not the answer. New languages (or old giants) and formal systems might be. Ballerina, Unison, Dark, Ur/Web, Elm, Reason and so on.

You know, I also got my (official) start in an xBASE language (FoxPro), and while I am obsessed with the history of inventors like Englebart and his successors, those xBASE environments had more going for them than I tend to remember.

"Ordinary" people could use those tools to make useful things. We seem to have gone backwards from there.

What was different about those systems?

They were integrated usage environments. Batteries included. In FoxPro, you got:

    - built-in database
    - built-in documentation
    - built-in UI for editing data
    - built-in UI for editing schema
    - windowed environment (even in DOS)
    - oh yeah and a scripting language

This was first and foremost a usable environment immediately. "Development" was an advanced usage.

Emacs is this way. Smalltalk is this way. What they get is that programming languages are useless by themselves.

Contrast with now: the apps we build involve wiring together a database from here, a compiler from there, just figuring out how you're going to make pieces communicate and finally, you know, get something on the screen. Sure, there's an upside to composing systems a la carte. But the learning curve is far more prohibitive.

(Also, those xBASE systems just will not die. Just this morning I got an email question about a system that's been in service for 25 years now. How many of today's apps do you think will still be used (indeed, sold!) in 2043?)

Check out picolisp. It has a built-in database and can call existing C libraries and Java (using reflection) without any fuss.

Though apparently, it doesn't have lexical closures: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16981170

You can still get close to this experience on Android, .NET, Java, Cocoa.

Because as you say, grammar and semantics (aka language) are not enough.

Hence why when I analyse how suitable a programming language is for a given project, I always consider the whole ecosystem, and not how easy it is do FP, immutability or whatever is cool this year.

There is also the point of familiarity. Those old cli apps were hard to learn but crazy fast. I recall much grumbling about replacing good, but hard to use tools with web pages back in the 90s. If someone spends a decade getting good at a system, they really hate it when the ui/ux changes. I think we’re a little quick to throw out crufty but well understood systems.

It also seems like most modern UX theory values discoverability and ease-of-first-time-use far more than ergonomics for everyday users. At my work the UX/design team often evaluate new features by putting people in front of them without telling them anything and expecting them to work everything out on their own (often while they're being watched). A lot of our product is something that our customers interact with many times per day, yet we don't spend 1% the time optimizing workflows for the people who know what's going on compared to what we do for first time users.

I keep regularly pointing out at work that the platform I'm building is basically dBase III+, with the form designer etc. There are improvements, of course - the networking etc. But at the core we're building a platform to let our internal users quickly build new forms and capture data that's pretty much about doing what the dBase form designer etc. did.

It's crazy to me that even the tools that are trying to capture this space today have not managed to beat the usability of that.

E.g. tools like Airtable are great as long as you're trying to do something simple, but then you hit their limits, and suddenly the step up in complexity to do what you need is too large. Whereas with tools like dBase you could start with "just" a database with the default entry, and the steps up to gradually build up to a full application were small in comparison.

It pains me a lot of the time to see people basically try to reinvent tools we had in the 80's and do it poorly because they're just not aware of the lessons of those systems.

I don’t think this is sign we are doing something wrong as opposed to a reminder that big changes in technology usage take a long time to develop and process. The first self propelled passenger vehicle demoed in 1808- more than 100 years before the model T. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Steam_Carriage). The concept was proved early, but it took the development of the internal combustion engine and a century of manufacturing improvements and economic development before society was ready for mass adoption (and even then it was not overnight adoption.)

Innovation is typically more lucrative than invention. Creating whole new ideas and experiences drives the our body of knowledge further, but the rewards only start to accrue to society when those ideas are combined together with an advanced ecosystem that allows mass adoption.

I remember watching Russian TV from the US broadcast over the dial up in 1998, probably on realplayer. This was an amazing experience, magical even. I then and went back to my (CRT) TV because, well, an audio and video stream transmitted over 56k sucked.

It took another 8 years and billions of broadband infrastructure investment before YouTube launched.

I actually wonder more where are the amazing demos of today that aren’t yet economically feasible, but might get mass adoption in 40 years of infrastructure build out.

Coming back to Engelbart and his invention of the mouse and UI (besides other things): He made it clear that human-machine interaction happens mainly with our fingers, and in particular with our index finger. This kind of fact of human behavior takes generations if not 100’s of years to change. Once an invention demonstrates that all following inventions need to stay within such boundaries, adoption of new inventions seems to be much faster (what is an educated guess without scientific proof).

To come back to human-machine interaction, we think that the successor of the mouse (also for mixed reality for office) sees a much faster adoption rate than the mouse in the last 50 years. At least, we have bet a few years of our life on it with https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/coolest-mouse-ever We can tell you in a few years, whether our assumption was correct :-)

In re your last paragraph:

Quantum computing, cryptocurrency (Bitcoin with its 10tps vs Visa is analogous to Engelbart's GUI vs MacOS), lots of AI stuff that can kind of just barely be intelligent today, the Boston Dynamics robots, self driving cars, and last but definitely not least early DIY bio hacking / anarcho-transhumanist stuff and DIY medicine (search for Four Thieves Vinegar).

The things I listed are at varying levels of maturity and gravity but they are all things I expect to look back upon as "wow" moments that revealed new things that will be big in the future.

I'm sure others can think of more.

I'm thinking some of the stuff that will pushed for climate change mitigation will generate a lot material for new revolutions. If researchers and engineers manage to get efficient, cheap carbon capture at scale what sort of consequences does that have? What materials get super cheap and experiences common?

Can we get to a point where battery tech gets cheap enough that electric personal transport gets even cheaper than ICE cars? Does that bypass mass transit? We've seen futuristic visions of how that plays out, so not quite the reality yet.

At some point, nations at risk will start seriously exploring geo/climate engineering solutions. If adopted, what are the potential side effects and side products?

There's definitely something wrong with the Engelbart demo: where's the monetisation? Where's the adverts? How could it be sold for ten billion dollars at IPO? Where's the in-app purchases? How can it be sold as a service with appropriate lock-in?

That's exactly what I have been pointing out at every innovation conference or meeting where I speak. Where is the innovation? Where is the technology? We think that what we use today is advanced and works better, but it's just not true.

A lot of it is about price and ease of adoption. My mother used a video phone at the worlds fair in the 60s. I’m fact, she loved it so much she kept on waiting in line to do it over and over again. She only started using one again 50 years later to see her grandkids over FaceTime. And the quality of the experience after 50 years? Well I believe the cameras used in the worlds fair setup were closed circuit broadcast grade tv cameras, so I think the quality was much better (albeit in color.)

The cost and ease of use however? Already in something she owned and a single button to answer the call.

Bret Victor highlighted that conundrum in his great talk, The Future of Programming.

https://www.programmingtalks.org/talk/the-future-of-programm...

Innovation always seems 2 steps forward one step back... I wonder if we will look back at Steve Jobs' iPhone launch in 07 as something similar (if not already).

That launch is already considered an innovative turning point.

What he shows is basically what exists now in phone tech (apps, good internet, GPS...), and it's the same only-screen device (today's are equal, only larger). And it's now owned by more than 2 billion people.

I know Jobs was seen (probably correctly) as a jerk. But this was such a huge achievement that I can't help admiring it.

And a better working version of skype!

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