I was always disappointed with daliclock,I remember a distinct image in my mind the first time I'd read the name of an old fashioned pocket watch that draped over any particular window on the desktop, like in a Dali painting. Hmm, project.
The Alto version never took off, exactly because there were no "wasted" instructions for the purpose of vendor lock in or irreplicable platform insurance.
Once you add some layers of instructions, frameworks, toolkits and outright cruft (notably DRM) it sells like hotcakes, only because of Market dynamics (which have very little to do with the product itself).
It is in no vendor's genuine interest to let people know how a computer truly works: just to indoctrinate on partial, select areas.
"Let's take a moment to ponder this version and the Alto version, and just how many wasted instructions, layers of abstraction, frameworks, toolkits and outright cruft have gotten between the algorithm and the frame buffer in the intervening twenty-seven years. This program makes my phone hot. Hot, I tell you."
There is a great comment in there in need of a few minutes of silence out of respect: for the world that has changed, and for those who still know how a computer really works, all the way to the transistors.
I think JWZ's talking about unnecessary abstraction layers, and re-written wheels created by technology fetishists and bad designers, rather than lamenting the lack of knowledge required to make useful things in modern OSs.
Yes, but which abstraction layer in the WebOS is unnecessary? I think I disagree with JWZ on this one. Is it really better to have for instance all the formating capabilities of CSS built into the Desktop-OS' native widget set? Than you would have to coordinate your OS development with the development of the CSS specifications.
This was my first thought when I read the entry, as well. I felt somewhat silly sharing it for its own sake, but I found that line to be very poignant.
