Gerall’s Blog

At the end of this year, we’re beginning to hear all the people writing about the technical innovations, surprises, and vaporware that has caught our attention during the last 12 months. SCO finally gets its due, Oracle and Microsoft are being stranger bedfellows than anyone even pretended to think originally, and hardware just keeps on evolving. All these topics are served up for me on my customized Google homepage, pithy link and all, just waiting for me to begin reading…

In and amongst the froth of articles that will only cease with the arrival of 2007jan01, I find this piece. I read it because I’m a Free Software advocate; I pay attention to the author’s message (a much higher bit of praise) because it addresses the future of computing.

My big prediction:

We know what computers can do; I believe that there will be change in the way that computers do them.

For example, the desktop metaphor will be introduced to its younger sibling (an as yet to be determined metaphor). Because this new method of interacting with a computer will be more intuitive for the coming generation, it will gain wide-spread adoption among users. This will cause a schism in the way people relate to their computers, with die-hard desktop users holding on until modern coders can’t continue to support backwards compatibility.

Computing, on the other hand, will benefit from this parting of ways. This split will force people to re-evaluate their algorithms and processes; the way that computers are applied to a problem will shift subtly. How computers do their job will change.

Consider the insane idea I have for a program which manages a user’s files and filesystem for them. I am advocating pushing the responsibility of remembering where things are and what they are named back onto the computer (which has, demonstrably, better memory than any single non-mutant human being I can point to).

Files, in this paradigm, are tagged and stored by the program. When a person wants their files back, they enter the tags that they are interested in and the program displays all files associated with those tags. Users then select the particular files they want (and will be reminded of other, closely-associated files in the list) and tell the program what they want to do with them. Steward (the name of this vaporware thus far) will then learn what their users do with files, and present options when a given selection comes up.

Steward may learn that image files are viewed in slideshows, edited, and emailed. Spreadsheets are edited and emailed. Word processor documents are edited and emailed as well… Video clips are played most often, edited sometimes, and emailed.

Suddenly, when we leverage the memory available with computers to the tasks that I, at least, find most onerous, we begin teaching the computer new ways of doing things that help us. This is what I believe computers should be doing anyway.

I’m making this radical prediction because I’m working toward making part of it come true. Wish me luck!

Tags: Technical //