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On Apps and Browsers

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Owen Densmore

On Apps and Browsers

Administrator

Pardon me if this is to weird for words, but our other conversation
brought out the phenomenon of Apps. Attached below this is the
original fragment.

Basically I was surprised by the growth of "Apps", especially with the
apparent convergence of everything in the browser (Web Apps).

It has now been explained to me by several of my friends in accademia.
Their students have, for me, an odd relationship to computers. Few
can program and generally find the idea foreign. For a while I
thought this an aberration but more evidence piled up. So why is
this? Twitter? Facebook? Lazy dumb-ass kids?

No.

Jobs explained it all in the WWDC keynote. He described the concept
of a file hierarchy as being a pain for most folks who simply want an
App to manage their files and to hell with the file, its name and
extension, and where it is in the file hierarchy and syncing the damn
files from/to all my devices. And setting up sync to iPad to allow
more music files (larger disk) than my iPhone (smaller disk). Files
and their management are a bitch.

Jobs sez that all data should have a simple App managing the data, and
actually, the data should not even be on individual devices .. instead
they should be in the cloud and managed by the OS/App pair. Better
yet, the Time Machine notion is generalized so that all backups, over
time, are also available to you. Oh, and if 10,000 people have the
same music, there is one, count it one, copy of the file in the sky
and we all share it!

Well now, there's an idea! And I bet it works. And I bet it makes
Google run like the devil to catch up because they're still stuck in
yesterday's Web App approach.

Well, I don't mind Web Apps and I love the convergence due to the
simplification: one solution across all browsers and OSs and
platforms. But Jobs has this right due to the explosion of devices:
phones, tvs, tablets, netbooks, desktops, laptops, servers etc. Its
just too hard to have a single web interface across them all.

So the race is on: Will Web Apps win, or will Apps win. I'm betting
on the latter, and on iCloud to do the best job of implementing them.

Final point: this is definitely going to up the ante to get security
right. And I'm betting Apple is hot on that, probably some sort of
key-pair approach that is made easier by King Jobs and his court.

Let the fun begin. I'm glad I now at least have a map!

-- Owen

Philosophical note: The WWDC Apple keynote by Jobs made a good point.
The trend away from browser interfaces to Apps. This is not a biggie
for us, but Google's in a tight corner now. Most vanilla computer
users will want an App for every Google service.

Jobs' comment that raw data in file hierarchies is too weird for the
general user. I thought that odd until I spoke with a few educators
who say their students despise looking around for where their files
are and launching the right app for them. Hard to believe.

But Google really is in a tough place with the new iCloud. I was at a
talk with all of Apple engineering in the early '80s where Negroponte,
discussing Mac color displays will have to be twice as good as PCs due
to being late to the party. Well, Jobs listened and spent LOTS of
engineering time on getting color right across computers and printers.
He's going to do it right this time with iCloud. Us old farts will
hang on to our splintered unorganized world till the End Of Time. The
rest of the world is passing us by.

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Russ Abbott

Re: On Apps and Browsers

How do you organize your 10,000 apps and find the one you want at any particular time?

-- Russ Abbott
_____________________________________________

Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles

Google voice: 747-999-5105
blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/
vita: http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/
_____________________________________________

On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 9:09 AM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:

Pardon me if this is to weird for words, but our other conversation
brought out the phenomenon of Apps. Attached below this is the
original fragment.

Basically I was surprised by the growth of "Apps", especially with the
apparent convergence of everything in the browser (Web Apps).

It has now been explained to me by several of my friends in accademia.
Their students have, for me, an odd relationship to computers. Few
can program and generally find the idea foreign. For a while I
thought this an aberration but more evidence piled up. So why is
this? Twitter? Facebook? Lazy dumb-ass kids?

No.

Jobs explained it all in the WWDC keynote. He described the concept
of a file hierarchy as being a pain for most folks who simply want an
App to manage their files and to hell with the file, its name and
extension, and where it is in the file hierarchy and syncing the damn
files from/to all my devices. And setting up sync to iPad to allow
more music files (larger disk) than my iPhone (smaller disk). Files
and their management are a bitch.

Jobs sez that all data should have a simple App managing the data, and
actually, the data should not even be on individual devices .. instead
they should be in the cloud and managed by the OS/App pair. Better
yet, the Time Machine notion is generalized so that all backups, over
time, are also available to you. Oh, and if 10,000 people have the
same music, there is one, count it one, copy of the file in the sky
and we all share it!

Well now, there's an idea! And I bet it works. And I bet it makes
Google run like the devil to catch up because they're still stuck in
yesterday's Web App approach.

Well, I don't mind Web Apps and I love the convergence due to the
simplification: one solution across all browsers and OSs and
platforms. But Jobs has this right due to the explosion of devices:
phones, tvs, tablets, netbooks, desktops, laptops, servers etc. Its
just too hard to have a single web interface across them all.

So the race is on: Will Web Apps win, or will Apps win. I'm betting
on the latter, and on iCloud to do the best job of implementing them.

Final point: this is definitely going to up the ante to get security
right. And I'm betting Apple is hot on that, probably some sort of
key-pair approach that is made easier by King Jobs and his court.

Let the fun begin. I'm glad I now at least have a map!

-- Owen

Philosophical note: The WWDC Apple keynote by Jobs made a good point.
The trend away from browser interfaces to Apps. This is not a biggie
for us, but Google's in a tight corner now. Most vanilla computer
users will want an App for every Google service.

Jobs' comment that raw data in file hierarchies is too weird for the
general user. I thought that odd until I spoke with a few educators
who say their students despise looking around for where their files
are and launching the right app for them. Hard to believe.

But Google really is in a tough place with the new iCloud. I was at a
talk with all of Apple engineering in the early '80s where Negroponte,
discussing Mac color displays will have to be twice as good as PCs due
to being late to the party. Well, Jobs listened and spent LOTS of
engineering time on getting color right across computers and printers.
He's going to do it right this time with iCloud. Us old farts will
hang on to our splintered unorganized world till the End Of Time. The
rest of the world is passing us by.

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

glen ep ropella

Re: On Apps and Browsers

Russ Abbott wrote at 06/10/2011 10:16 AM:
> How do you organize your 10,000 apps and find the one you want at any
> particular time?

It can be data-driven with a profiler that takes a signature of the
incoming data and chooses based on that. Or you can require magic
numbers in the data format. Or, you can allow the data sender to
specify it in a metadata preamble. Then you can allow the receiver to
choose their "preferred apps" if there are more than one that can handle
the same type of data and/or the receiver is just a picky actor. Such
selection could be done over time. The receiver might have all the apps
indexed and choose at random which app to use to play the data, perhaps
allowing a weighting for errors or other pressures. As one app's weight
grows significantly larger than others, the receiver will eventually
choose that one (almost always) when faced with a particular data signature.

The key is the index, which is why Jobs cleverly prestidigitates our
attention away from the one who owns the ontology.

--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Parks, Raymond

Re: On Apps and Browsers

Glen,

I think you may have missed the point of Russ' message. The whole "app" thing, whether web or proprietary, simply hides one layer of comlexity behind another complex layer. The end result is that the luser is completely seperated from their data yet equally confused. Your example of incoming data (and the proprietary nature of Apple's approach) makes sense. But the majority of transactions use existing data. Let's say the luser wants to play a song they know they own. Let's further postulate the actual file, whereever it resides, is not standard - an ogg codec file. The proprietary Apple app will only play songs in MP4 and only a few codecs. So the user will need to find the oggplayer app. Complexity is reduced but cumulatively the proliferation of apps will be just as confusing as the file system.

Ray Parks

P.S. Jobs' vision is for even more lock-in through proprietary apps. Web apps will draw on Google's search to find the right app for any incoming file.

----- Original Message -----
From: glen e. p. ropella [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Friday, June 10, 2011 12:03 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] On Apps and Browsers

Russ Abbott wrote at 06/10/2011 10:16 AM:
> How do you organize your 10,000 apps and find the one you want at any
> particular time?

It can be data-driven with a profiler that takes a signature of the
incoming data and chooses based on that. Or you can require magic
numbers in the data format. Or, you can allow the data sender to
specify it in a metadata preamble. Then you can allow the receiver to
choose their "preferred apps" if there are more than one that can handle
the same type of data and/or the receiver is just a picky actor. Such
selection could be done over time. The receiver might have all the apps
indexed and choose at random which app to use to play the data, perhaps
allowing a weighting for errors or other pressures. As one app's weight
grows significantly larger than others, the receiver will eventually
choose that one (almost always) when faced with a particular data signature.

The key is the index, which is why Jobs cleverly prestidigitates our
attention away from the one who owns the ontology.

--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

glen ep ropella

Re: On Apps and Browsers

Parks, Raymond wrote at 06/10/2011 12:01 PM:
> I think you may have missed the point of Russ' message.

[grin] Probably. I miss points all the time, especially when couched
in very terse language. In fact, if I actually _get_ a point, it's
cause for celebration.

> The whole
> "app" thing, whether web or proprietary, simply hides one layer of
> comlexity behind another complex layer. The end result is that the
> luser is completely seperated from their data yet equally confused.

I don't think so. Humans are (luckily) capable of lots of abstraction,
layers upon layers of it. That's why some of us like Jazz. ;-) Even if
your computer does some fancy things like present us with 9 alternate
apps with which to interpret a chunk of incoming data, we can
(eventually) learn to interpret and guide the process by which such
alternates are presented.

This is what we've been doing since the dawn of "the tool". Tools (e.g.
computers) don't adapt to us or make our lives any easier. We adapt to
the tools. We're better adapters than the tools will ever be
(singularity?!?). The separation doesn't matter (any more than an
iPhone user understands the device drivers they use when they make a
phone call, or a lab tech understands the physics of radioactive decay).
What matters is that the device behaves in a regular way. We expert
pattern recognizers will recognize the patterns and adapt ... even if a
generation of old farts has to die off for that to happen. ;-) "Get off
my lawn!"

> Your example of incoming data (and the proprietary nature of Apple's
> approach) makes sense. But the majority of transactions use existing
> data. Let's say the luser wants to play a song they know they own.
> Let's further postulate the actual file, whereever it resides, is not
> standard - an ogg codec file. The proprietary Apple app will only
> play songs in MP4 and only a few codecs. So the user will need to
> find the oggplayer app.

The point is that the user shouldn't do that work, the computer should.
The indexing is the important piece. If we're assuming that the data
is in "the cloud", then there's no reason the app can't also be
accessible, automatically installed from, the cloud. Perhaps it's just
a codec or perhaps it's a whole app that is either forked into versions
that run on the most popular machines or relies on a relatively common
virtual machine. Perhaps it's even a shared object that relies on a
grid infrastructure. None of that really matters as much as the
_index_, the name/address by which one refers to the data and the apps
that process the data.

The human need do nothing (except wait, depending on the bandwidth of
their connection and the compute power of their machine). It can all be
handled automatically if there is a standard ontology. The
attractiveness of approaches like Apple's are that standardization is
easier to achieve (and control, and exploit).

> Complexity is reduced but cumulatively the
> proliferation of apps will be just as confusing as the file system.

I disagree. The complexity increases with names/addresses, but not
necessarily apps. A decent example is what happens when I click on,
say, an OGG file on the web. Because of the defaults set in Firefox and
my preferences over the top of that, clicking on such a file calls up
VLC. Clicking on an M4A file, however, calls up Totem. Both begin
playing automatically, with the same standard pause, play, volume, etc.
buttons. The proliferation of apps complicates the index, but not my
interaction with the machine. All that's required is a better way to
manage/navigate the index, which is provided by the markup of an
ontology (and requires more expressibility than a 2D GUI).

--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Owen Densmore

Re: On Apps and Browsers

Administrator

In reply to this post by Russ Abbott

[Sorry if this is a repeat, gmail problems]

On Jun 10, 2011, at 11:16 AM, Russ Abbott wrote:

How do you organize your 10,000 apps and find the one you want at any particular time?

-- Russ Abbott
_____________________________________________
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles

Google voice: 747-999-5105
blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/
vita: http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/
_____________________________________________

Use Google Quick Search Box. They've fixed all the weird indexing problems and performance issues, apparently on my system (Snow Leopard). Now this does presume the Modern User can type and remember the name of the app. Note that android and iphone/pad have search built in for finding apps.

BTW: Yet another gmail problem is that several gmail users, when I get their email in a mail client, show the text in a tiny font .. and show various parts like the sig, in a larger font. I have no idea what's up but its common, and I believe unique to gmail. Looks fine in the gmail WUI.

-- Owen

On Jun 10, 2011, at 11:16 AM, Russ Abbott wrote:

How do you organize your 10,000 apps and find the one you want at any particular time?

-- Russ Abbott
_____________________________________________
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles

Google voice: 747-999-5105
blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/
vita: http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/
_____________________________________________

Owen Densmore

Re: On Apps and Browsers

Administrator

BTW: Here's an example of Gmail's odd font problem: Here is an image:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Jun 10, 2011, at 6:59 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:

[Sorry if this is a repeat, gmail problems]

On Jun 10, 2011, at 11:16 AM, Russ Abbott wrote:

How do you organize your 10,000 apps and find the one you want at any particular time?

-- Russ Abbott
_____________________________________________
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles

Google voice: 747-999-5105
blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/
vita: http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/
_____________________________________________

Use Google Quick Search Box. They've fixed all the weird indexing problems and performance issues, apparently on my system (Snow Leopard). Now this does presume the Modern User can type and remember the name of the app. Note that android and iphone/pad have search built in for finding apps.

BTW: Yet another gmail problem is that several gmail users, when I get their email in a mail client, show the text in a tiny font .. and show various parts like the sig, in a larger font. I have no idea what's up but its common, and I believe unique to gmail. Looks fine in the gmail WUI.

-- Owen

scaganoff

Re: On Apps and Browsers

In reply to this post by Owen Densmore

Tying into another thread, one of the reasons I like gmail is that it was the first mail app that got me away from the folder paradigm. I don't use folders in gmail and sparingly use tags. Gmails search is good enough to help me find any email I need from a backlog of several years worth.

Interesting to see this now being applied to apps. On my windows 7 laptop I use search to find apps and almost never resort to the folder structure under the start menu.

I've long hated folders because it becomes too difficult to find where you've filed things. Folders rely on a well thought out ontology. Clay Christensen touches on this problem when he talks about ontologies (folders) vs folksonomies (tags).

Another observation is that I think the folder paradigm is more aimed at the "inexpert" user. At the majority of two finger typists who hack away at their keyboards all day because they have to.

For the expert user I think a command line is far more efficient, but it requires a high investment to learn and internalize. Many years ago I used a CAD system called GDS which predated graphic terminals. It had a command line which could do anything you could now do with a mouse or digitizing tablet. Most of my colleagues used digitizers, but the real experts used the command line and were way more efficient.

Regards,

Saul

On 11/06/2011, at 11:00 AM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:

[Sorry if this is a repeat, gmail problems]

On Jun 10, 2011, at 11:16 AM, Russ Abbott wrote:

How do you organize your 10,000 apps and find the one you want at any particular time?

-- Russ Abbott
_____________________________________________
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles

Google voice: 747-999-5105
blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/
vita: http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/
_____________________________________________

Use Google Quick Search Box. They've fixed all the weird indexing problems and performance issues, apparently on my system (Snow Leopard). Now this does presume the Modern User can type and remember the name of the app. Note that android and iphone/pad have search built in for finding apps.

BTW: Yet another gmail problem is that several gmail users, when I get their email in a mail client, show the text in a tiny font .. and show various parts like the sig, in a larger font. I have no idea what's up but its common, and I believe unique to gmail. Looks fine in the gmail WUI.

-- Owen

<Finder004a.jpg>

On Jun 10, 2011, at 11:16 AM, Russ Abbott wrote:

How do you organize your 10,000 apps and find the one you want at any particular time?

-- Russ Abbott
_____________________________________________
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles

Google voice: 747-999-5105
blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/
vita: http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/
_____________________________________________

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Eric Charles

Re: On Apps and Browsers

In reply to this post by Owen Densmore

Thoughts on Apps vs. Web Apps / Apple approach vs. Google approach

Apple seems definitely on the right track with the iCloud, but I think, as Owen's email points out, that is because they are rapidly adapting to the new hardware ecology. In a world where everyone has one or two computers, full function computers, the Google approach rocks. In a world where everyone has 15 computers and each has different levels of functionality, the Apple approach seems like it has a shot (if done right) at being a lot better. I don't, however, take it as obvious that the proliferation of computing devices owned by single individuals will continue. The cellphone/laptop hybrids, for example, might be a harbinger of things to come. If people scale back to a smaller number of multifunctional devices (perhaps quite small devices that function differently when connected to different interface devices), I think its anyone's game.

Eric

On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 12:09 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:

Pardon me if this is to weird for words, but our other conversation
brought out the phenomenon of Apps.  Attached below this is the
original fragment.

Basically I was surprised by the growth of "Apps", especially with the
apparent convergence of everything in the browser (Web Apps).

It has now been explained to me by several of my friends in accademia.
 Their students have, for me, an odd relationship to computers.  Few
can program and generally find the idea foreign.  For a while I
thought this an aberration but more evidence piled up.  So why is
this?  Twitter?  Facebook? Lazy dumb-ass kids?

No.

Jobs explained it all in the WWDC keynote.  He described the concept
of a file hierarchy as being a pain for most folks who simply want an
App to manage their files and to hell with the file, its name and
extension, and where it is in the file hierarchy and syncing the damn
files from/to all my devices.  And setting up sync to iPad to allow
more music files (larger disk) than my iPhone (smaller
disk).  Files
and their management are a bitch.

Jobs sez that all data should have a simple App managing the data, and
actually, the data should not even be on individual devices .. instead
they should be in the cloud and managed by the OS/App pair.  Better
yet, the Time Machine notion is generalized so that all backups, over
time, are also available to you.  Oh, and if 10,000 people have the
same music, there is one, count it one, copy of the file in the sky
and we all share it!

Well now, there's an idea!  And I bet it works.  And I bet it makes
Google run like the devil to catch up because they're still stuck in
yesterday's Web App approach.

Well, I don't mind Web Apps and I love the convergence due to the
simplification: one solution across all browsers and OSs and
platforms.  But Jobs has this right due to the explosion of devices:
phones, tvs, tablets, netbooks, desktops, laptops, servers etc.  Its
just too hard to have a single web interface across them all.

So the race is on: Will Web Apps win, or will Apps win.  I'm betting
on the latter, and on iCloud to do the best job of implementing them.

Final point: this is definitely going to up the ante to get security
right.  And I'm betting Apple is hot on that, probably some sort of
key-pair approach that is made easier by King Jobs and his court.

Let the fun begin.  I'm glad I now at least have a map!

   -- Owen

Philosophical note: The WWDC Apple keynote by Jobs made a good point.
The trend away from browser interfaces to Apps.  This is not a biggie
for us, but Google's in a tight corner now.  Most vanilla computer
users will want an App for every Google service.

Jobs' comment that raw data in file hierarchies is too weird for the
general user.  I thought that odd until I spoke with a few educators
who say their students despise looking around for where their files
are and launching the right app for them.  Hard to believe.

But Google really is in a tough place with the new iCloud.  I was at a
talk with all of Apple engineering in the early '80s where Negroponte,
discussing Mac color displays will have to be twice as good as PCs due
to being late to the party.  Well, Jobs listened and spent LOTS of
engineering time on getting color right across computers and printers.
 He's going to do it right this time with iCloud.  Us old farts will
hang on to our splintered unorganized world till the End Of Time.  The
rest of the world is passing us by.

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Eric Charles

Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601

Nick Thompson

Re: On Apps and Browsers

Thread HiJacking Alert:

What about the world in which you can wake up in the morning and discover that your credit company has been hacked? A million Citibank accounts were compromised yesterday. Is this relevant to the cloud/ground discussion, or shall I start my own thread on whether perpetual newbies such as myself should be considering dual key passwords.

I leave it to the thread curator.

Nick

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of ERIC P. CHARLES
Sent: Saturday, June 11, 2011 12:16 PM
To: Owen Densmore
Cc: [hidden email]; Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] On Apps and Browsers

Pardon me if this is to weird for words, but our other conversation

brought out the phenomenon of Apps.  Attached below this is the

original fragment.

Basically I was surprised by the growth of "Apps", especially with the

apparent convergence of everything in the browser (Web Apps).

It has now been explained to me by several of my friends in accademia.

 Their students have, for me, an odd relationship to computers.  Few

can program and generally find the idea foreign.  For a while I

thought this an aberration but more evidence piled up.  So why is

this?  Twitter?  Facebook? Lazy dumb-ass kids?

No.

Jobs explained it all in the WWDC keynote.  He described the concept

of a file hierarchy as being a pain for most folks who simply want an

App to manage their files and to hell with the file, its name and

extension, and where it is in the file hierarchy and syncing the damn

files from/to all my devices.  And setting up sync to iPad to allow

more music files (larger disk) than my iPhone (smaller

disk).  Files

and their management are a bitch.

Jobs sez that all data should have a simple App managing the data, and

actually, the data should not even be on individual devices .. instead

they should be in the cloud and managed by the OS/App pair.  Better

yet, the Time Machine notion is generalized so that all backups, over

time, are also available to you.  Oh, and if 10,000 people have the

same music, there is one, count it one, copy of the file in the sky

and we all share it!

Well now, there's an idea!  And I bet it works.  And I bet it makes

Google run like the devil to catch up because they're still stuck in

yesterday's Web App approach.

Well, I don't mind Web Apps and I love the convergence due to the

simplification: one solution across all browsers and OSs and

platforms.  But Jobs has this right due to the explosion of devices:

phones, tvs, tablets, netbooks, desktops, laptops, servers etc.  Its

just too hard to have a single web interface across them all.

So the race is on: Will Web Apps win, or will Apps win.  I'm betting

on the latter, and on iCloud to do the best job of implementing them.

Final point: this is definitely going to up the ante to get security

right.  And I'm betting Apple is hot on that, probably some sort of

key-pair approach that is made easier by King Jobs and his court.

Let the fun begin.  I'm glad I now at least have a map!

   -- Owen

Philosophical note: The WWDC Apple keynote by Jobs made a good point.

The trend away from browser interfaces to Apps.  This is not a biggie

for us, but Google's in a tight corner now.  Most vanilla computer

users will want an App for every Google service.

Jobs' comment that raw data in file hierarchies is too weird for the

general user.  I thought that odd until I spoke with a few educators

who say their students despise looking around for where their files

are and launching the right app for them.  Hard to believe.

But Google really is in a tough place with the new iCloud.  I was at a

talk with all of Apple engineering in the early '80s where Negroponte,

discussing Mac color displays will have to be twice as good as PCs due

to being late to the party.  Well, Jobs listened and spent LOTS of

engineering time on getting color right across computers and printers.

 He's going to do it right this time with iCloud.  Us old farts will

hang on to our splintered unorganized world till the End Of Time.  The

rest of the world is passing us by.

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Eric Charles

Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601

glen ep ropella

Re: On Apps and Browsers

In reply to this post by scaganoff

Thanks, Saul. Your message brings together a point I should have made
prior to my claim that it's all about the index/ontology.

The 2D GUI, folder structure, $PATH variables, and search indexes are
all members of the same category. They are _names_ of things. They are
all user interfaces to the underlying structure (of the hard disk, of
the database, or whatever).

And while they certainly do seem different, especially to those who are
reared with, most often use, or have an intuitive feel for one or the
other, in the end, they are all the same. They are indices into,
perspectives on, or aspects of the data. Which one you use _should_
depend on your use case rather than a preference for any given one.
But, of course, we're all "experts" at being ourselves, which means our
biases define us and are what make us useful to those around us.
Without biases, we're just high maintenance machines. So, I realize
it's unrealistic to expect people to use Search in one context, folders
in another, $PATHs in another, etc. But, I think it does help to see
the instances together in their class context.

I think my preference for the $PATH comes from the open-endedness and
customizability of that method. I can literally put anything in or take
anything out of that $PATH, at will. It gives me a very fine-grained
control over my environment. The granularity of the folder structure is
much coarser (because it's hierarchical, which is also its strength).
And while the granularity of search indices is also very fine, I'm just
not satisfied with the _common_ attributes available to be searched.
If/when I write my own parsers/analyzers, I get more comfortable with
search. But I just don't do that enough to ever really get comfortable.
And the typical search engines provided by others (e.g. Google,
Spotlight, locate, etc.) just don't work the way my mind works, I suppose.

Saul Caganoff wrote at 06/11/2011 05:45 AM:

> Tying into another thread, one of the reasons I like gmail is that it
> was the first mail app that got me away from the folder paradigm. I
> don't use folders in gmail and sparingly use tags. Gmails search is good
> enough to help me find any email I need from a backlog of several years
> worth.
>
> Interesting to see this now being applied to apps. On my windows 7
> laptop I use search to find apps and almost never resort to the folder
> structure under the start menu.
>
> I've long hated folders because it becomes too difficult to find where
> you've filed things. Folders rely on a well thought out ontology. Clay
> Christensen touches on this problem when he talks about ontologies
> (folders) vs folksonomies (tags).
>
> Another observation is that I think the folder paradigm is more aimed at
> the "inexpert" user. At the majority of two finger typists who hack away
> at their keyboards all day because they have to.
>
> For the expert user I think a command line is far more efficient, but it
> requires a high investment to learn and internalize. Many years ago I
> used a CAD system called GDS which predated graphic terminals. It had a
> command line which could do anything you could now do with a mouse or
> digitizing tablet. Most of my colleagues used digitizers, but the real
> experts used the command line and were way more efficient.

--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org