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chaoticset (2105)
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JAPH. (That's right -- I'm not Really Inexperienced any more.)
I'm not just here, I'm here [perlmonks.org], and here [javajunkies.org] too, I ramble randomly in my philosophical blog [blogspot.com] and my other blog [blogspot.com]. Soon I'll come in a convenient six-pack.
Journal of chaoticset (2105)
Smartiness
Yeah, right -- who am I kidding?
Anyway, after thinking about what was really required for these things to be possible, it occurred to me that these people are describing absolutely fantastic machines. What they describe is not necessarily intuitive, and most of the time has to do with telepathy (which is coming, but it's taking it's sweet time), but every now and then something truly interesting pops out.
One gentleman apparently got the idea that to send email, you wrote a letter on paper, balled it up, and inserted it into an orifice on the system. And the system, being the magnificent piece of technology it is, would just figure out how to turn that into data, locate the recipient, and produce email on their end.
Now, if that were possible, it'd be a hell of a thing. It's not, though, so it becomes a joke.
I'm going to keep reading, though. I keep getting good ideas for new gadgets in my stories.
--Larry Wall in stab.c from the perl source code
There's That Word Again (Score:1)
Not to you, but how else do you think people would come up with these ideas? To send a fax, you write your letter on a piece of paper and stick it into a fax machine. To send a letter, you write your letter on a piece of paper, put it in an envelope, and stick it into a mailbox. Why should a computer be any different?
That is why I think "intuitive" is an absolutely terrible word to use to describe computers.
Re:There's That Word Again (Score:1)
To send a fax, you write your letter on a piece of paper and stick it into a fax machine. To send a letter, you write your letter on a piece of paper, put it in an envelope, and stick it into a mailbox. Why should a computer be any different?
Um... keyboard?
Re:There's That Word Again (Score:1)
My typewriter doesn't send e-mail.
Re:There's That Word Again (Score:1)
I haven't. ( but I haven't been around that many typewriter users either... ) Why? Well... to an extent, form follows function.
You had asked "Why should a computer be any different?" and I was trying to offer up the keyboard as the reason.
With a typewriter most people know the keyboard is for input (and, I don't believe that they know this because of intuition. It is learned.)... and I would bet that the person tha
Re:There's That Word Again (Score:1)
Well, I'm really the only one I was thinking it has to seem intuitive to.
I'm writing this with a very light sense of audience, mostly people from this hyah site. Were it non-technically minded folk and writing with a more serious purpose, I might refer to the paper insertion data transfer as "intuitive".
The audience here is really just me anyway, I'm only guessing that a few others here might read it, and possibly a few stragglers from other areas of the web. I take the point, I do -- I r
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