A letter to the editor I wrote to the New Yorker is in this month. See it here or read it in replicate here:
"When Jobs visited Xerox PARC and saw the company’s Alto computer, the windowed environment that so impressed him was running a system called Smalltalk, invented by Alan Kay, Dan Ingalls, and others. It was designed specifically with children in mind, to make examination, modification, and extension of the system easy for non-technical users. For example, in most Smalltalk systems, any visible object can be clicked on, and its source code inspected, copied, and modified. In contrast, the iPad and other iDevices available from Apple hide the source code for the system (by both legal and technical artifice). This barrier effectively destroys the system as a platform for exploratory, educational use. The Apple / Xerox story isn’t just one of a nimble young company snatching innovation from the jaws of an aging dinosaur. It is also the story of a corporate entity neutering a design philosophy meant to empower computer users and replacing it with one meant to sell them things."
I'm writing a full length article on this subject which I may publish here. Wait for it!
5 comments:
Thanks for calling it out, I was very glad to see the letter published.
Thanks for noticing. I have a full length article with the same basic premise in the works, but I'm not sure if I should just post it on the blog or try to find a print publisher. Any suggestions?
Code Quarterly does have "Computer history" listed among "Types of articles". A piece examining the history from Xerox PARC and Apple to iOS and the App Store could fit in this space, especially if it tied in technical details comparing Smalltalk with iOS and Objective-C, but I'm not sure.
I don't know how much Smalltalk there is in Objective-C, so I don't know if there's a real story there. I find all this history slightly tragic, given the rejection of the MIT Scratch app, yet it's quite fascinating.
It isn't really a technical article, and I actually know very little Smalltalk. It is more of a contrast between the Xerox PARC Philosophy with that of the iPad.
I'm thinking either Slate or maybe trying to get it into the Atlanta. I interviewed Alan Kay over email, so its has something like actual journalism going on.
That's great! Those would definitely get it a wider audience than CQ. Good luck!
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