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From: glg@sfsup.UUCP (G.Gleason)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Where are the small thinkers?
Message-ID: <2266@sfsup.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 27-Oct-87 14:57:05 EST
Article-I.D.: sfsup.2266
Posted: Tue Oct 27 14:57:05 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 31-Oct-87 13:37:34 EST
References: <21430@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: glg@/guest4/glgUUCP (xmpj20000-G.Gleason)
Organization: AT&T Information Systems
Lines: 37

In article <21430@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (David Phillip Oster) writes:
	[ stuff deleted about "Cannon Cat", and how it probably
	  takes the KISS principles much too far ]
>This whole thing was written in response to an article in
>comp.society.futures on "Whatever happened to Small is Beautiful?",
>Lamenting that the window systems and text processors of today are
>bigger and more poewerful than the ones of a few years ago. One answer
>is today's systems don't solve the same problems. a Second answer is:
>Want to buy my 48kRAM CP/M system? It can run old WordStar, and I'll
>sell it to you for only $300.00, which is 1/10 what I bought it for 5
>years ago. It works fine, and still does everything it ever did, I
>just don't want that anymore.

I think you have gotten to the heart of the problem.  Small *is*
beautiful, but I think a lot of people have a distorted idea of what
small is.  First of all, economy of concepts is probably much more
important than saving bytes in core or on disk.  We are still on the
curve of reduction in size, cost, power, etc. of the hardware, and
software engineering is still in its infancy.  The programs and systems
may get much more complex, but they will do many more functions without
overloading us with new details to learn (the manuals get smaller).

Nobody knows better that many contemporary systems are a pain to use than
computer profesionals who must use them every day.  I am constantly
frustrated by having to use shell commands with zillions of criptic
options, but on the other hand I often find that MS/DOS just doesn't have
the power to do what I need.  The future is the power (and more) of UNIX,
and the ease of use of MAC type software.  Needless to say the programs
to accomplish this will be more complex, but they will also be more bug-
free and easier to use.  Today, to install and use a UNIX system, you
need to have an administrator who is fluent in the use of UNIX.  This is
too much to ask for the typical installation.  In the future this function
needs to be taken over by an "expert system", that is, a piece of software
that does what the systems administrator does today (obviosly this will
not make the software smaller and less complex).

Gerry Gleason