Engelbart and Kay --was: Back to the Future with Hypercard

[Judy Perry]

Hi Bill,

On Dec 28, 2007 11:24 AM, Bill Marriott <wjm at wjm.org> wrote:
>
> You know, my "not much demand for it" comment might indeed have been a
> little cavalier. But there is a context missing. Part of my thinking is not
> just the clip art stacks but also the address, date book, charting and other
> stacks where it seems we just won't have people switching from
> Office/Outlook.

This defines the fork in the road of things which are necessary for
new, non-programmer users:

--On the one hand, there is the need for the nice, pre-built template
stacks, stacks that, on their own, accomplish something useful in an
easy, elegant manner (and which also, by the nature of their
scripting, are additionally educational and extensible).  This is
something that is probably trivial for many members here (notice I
didn't say 'trivial for me'!);

--On the other hand, there is also the need for nice, built-in
clipart.  I think I read somewhere that Apple actually hired a real
graphic artist who understood the art of miniaturization for some of
this.  This one's a real dilemma.  It would be really neat if the
company could license a subset of the graphics available at
http://www.magicmouse.com/h_flyingc.html.  (I've bought the old Mac OS
9 version of Flying Colors and it was pretty decent for a person not
planning on doing their own graphics).  Otherwise, the issue of good
pre-built clipart is not, alas, a trivial problem requiring a
solution.

> My challenge would be that if there is a need for this kind of content, by
> all means let someone create it. If it's of high enough quality, it could be
> added to the RevSelect library, if not added to Revolution itself.

--It's a nice, noble challenge but here are some problems:

-a- until this actually happens, it (the lack of good prebuilts) will
continue to be a problem that continues to feed on itself;

-b- Many listers with the sufficient 'know-how' to create the needed
material are likely otherwise engaged in bottom-line productive work;
the rest of us (e.g., me) might well have an interest but are lacking
sufficient 'know-how' OR available time;

-c- The clipart's gonna be a problem.

Regards,

Judy