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Wherein it may be learned that "Project Xanadu" was a big project that would do everything...instead, we got the web. Does this sound familiar? It should.
Multics was a big project that would do everything...instead, we got unix.
Directory Access Protocol (DAP) was a big project that would do everything...instead, we got LDAP (and X.509). And people still use /etc/{passwd,group}.
SOAP vs. RPC? There's probably more such examples one could drag out...
Some might quibble whether LDAP is lightweight; compared to DAP it is. Others could argue that X.509 is too complicated and prone to security flaws, but here we are. Still others will claim that unix and the web were bad bad bad from the get-go, but you can probably ignore both of those forth users. Such arguments are unlikely to be resolved.
The "worse is better" horse feels rather flogged these days, so maybe I should wander this thing elsewhere.
Meanwhile, can you find an example of a big vision that did pan out?
> The essence of this distinction seems to be that documents have well-defined content that does not change between viewings and does not depend on the state of the outside world.
This definition is somewhat problematic. A work may be mostly well-defined, but translators will argue endlessly over particular lines, or words, to say less of the entire Tao Te Ching--"Gödel, with a grenade" may be exactly the point of that work. A particular print run by a particular translator may have well-defined content--until someone scribbles in a margin, or circles and corrects a word. Look! The content just changed!
And the content does very much depend on the state of the outside world; young me found Op. 133 unlistenable; old me rather likes the work.
That one can use the same document over and over is a fairly recent phenomena, but even with the same mp3 file one might have different speakers in a different environment for a different you. Maybe you've pinned something with a purple SHA256 hash. So what?
By the way, Firefly uses an earlier movement of Quartet No. 13 in the episode "Shindig". Outrage over Op. 133--"incomprehensible, like Chinese"--and the dismal commercial prospects resulted in multiple versions of this quartet, to say less of the many performances and other changes over time, even by the same quartet!
Probably this gets into philosophy, with which one may have a Platonic relationship, or not. Some try to preserve things forever (time's arrow), others will tear down and rebuild the shrine every 20 years (time's cycle). Some will follow the sheet music to the dot. Others will play the same song differently should a cloud wander across the sun. Commercial pressures may be paramount--forget Beethoven, wasn't there some fuss over the Roald Dahl books?
> The key to the Xanadu copyright and royalty scheme was that literal copying was forbidden in the Xanadu system. When a user wanted to quote a portion of document, that portion was transcluded. With fee for every reading.
Did you get a refund if you pointed out a typo?
> Transclusion was extremely challenging to the programmers, for it meant that there could be no redundancy in the grand Xanadu library. Every text could exist only as an original.
[Ibid.]
Okay, but how do you handle Borges quotes of the same bit of Don Quixote (the original, terrible; the modern, sublime) as if from two different authors? And do you exhume Cervantes and pay him, twice?
On the other hand, a document (whatever that might be) is usually pretty easy to tell apart from an application, and can be a useful distinction to make--I have to start the what now that will run what? Correcting the modern web to not be quite so much an application is perhaps quixotic. But there are plenty of documents to be had! Especially if you use w3m on a Paper of Record... no application-y nags.
Applications do have their uses; they can present documents in different ways. Or is chess an application? Too many applications might be as bad as too many documents.
> Why are video games so much better designed than office software? Because people who design video games love to play video games. People who design office software look forward to doing something else on the weekend.
> "How do you codify all the information in the world in a way that is infinitely scalable?" - but he suspected that human society might not benefit from a perfect technological memory. Thinking is based on selection and weeding out
Memory is the subject of another Borges work: "Funes el memorioso".
Or, why not tear down and build new protocols every 20 years? Folks will get experience with protocol design; flaws of older systems can be rectified or reimplemented, new software can be written and debugged. The 60 year olds can instruct the 40s can instruct the 20s. There have been worse jobs programs. Old content will be lost to the digital compost heap (a good application of Sturgeon's law) and new or relevant content retained. Maybe. There would of course be downsides, especially if you hew more to the arrow than the cycle.
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