> I would like to see really well thought out and genuinely intuitively
> designed front ends for Linux that demonstrate the ingenuity and
> intelligence that has gone into the backend. 5/6 of the world does not
> yet use or have access to computers -- but they will. I will bet that
> 95% of those do not want or need to know how a computer works for
> computers to be useful in their lives.
>
> Linux and Linux developers have the opportunity to meet that need.
>
> > Some fail to teach correctly, Some never get it. I tend to take the
> > blame on this one, but I didn't anticipate THAT move!! <cackles> Ric
> >
> Dismissing a failure to 'get it', avoids the failure to anticipate
> needs. And condemning users of stupidity -- I am not accusing you of
> that, but I see it all the time on Linux lists -- moves the blame onto
> the victim. I don't believe that most of those who have basic
> difficulties are stupid, but even if they were, shouldn't a computer be
> a device that helps people with a reduced metal capacity overcome the
> trials and frustrations of life not increase those difficulties. If an
> Operating System and/or an application can't do that, in the universal
> sense, what use is it?
>
Long long ago, I thought that the computer would be a mind lever. A
means of multiplying the power of the mind. But it has not met that
promise. I have written tools to write programs for people, but the
problem is that expectations are much higher than the capability of the
tools at this time. I was successful in getting a program designed that
would produce programs for testing military specificaiton Operational
Amplifiers, and could generate the 80% code program in about 15 minutes.
No one bought it because it didn't designe the DIB for them. Later I
wrote one that would port programs from Pascal STEPS at teradyne (along
with much help from other engineers) into ITLC the C based language,
even modifying the instrument code to match newer instruments. The
programs came out at about 90% level. A reasonable engineer could take
a STEPS program, run the converter, bring up the new code and debug it
in less than a week. The program would correllate in another week, and
be inproduction in 2 weeks or less. One customer refused to buy it, but
they hired us to convert their programs one at a time for 12,000 each.
We had one engineer on that full time for two years. He earned the
company about 600,000-his salery for doing nothing but running a
program, doing some clean up and running 50 devices on programs the
customer already had.
I created a program to convert simulator data into digital patterns
and timing for the 80 percent of all patterns on typical devices. No
one bought it. Instead they hired us to convert their programs. Again,
on digital programs pattern conversion is a biggie. So we converted a
pattern every 8 hours. In two weeks my program geneated more than 8
Gigabytes of program patterns. We charged them something like 2K per
pattern for the conversion (about 84K in two weeks). But no one would
buy the converter.
I did it three more times each time with the same result. In the
end, my software earned more than $8,000,000,000.00 in 15 years. I
think I paid for my self and a couple of other guys. But none of it was
perfect. It came very close, but took some extra effort to finalize the
product. Each program took me three to eight months to write. Some
times with help sometimes entirely by myself. Most people cannot think
two or three abstractions away, so it is not easy, but it can be done.
Our computers still do not help us get information from our minds into a
form useable by others. In fact I found that much of my time was spent
working around machine limitations. I wanted to get some result from a
non-linear combination of multiple inputs, and it was nearly impossible
to get a "partial response" from the software that would help me with
the problem. Unfortunately I am unable today even to describe precisely
what I needed, or how that might be obtained from a computer. But if
the kids don't get exposed at a very grassroots level to the machine,
not scripts or Basic, but at bits and bytes and math to make them do
things useful, how can they ever proceed to build upon the foundation we
have laid. Moreover, how can that partial response or full response to
partial data ever be created? How can our mind levers ever multiply our
mental force?
Regards,
Les H
