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Science
Friday > Archives
> 1998
> July
> July 10, 1998:
Hour Two: Computer Guru Gelernter
| If computer guru David Gelernter gets his way, your days of staring angrily at your computer desktop wondering where your important files have gotten to may soon be over. And hopefully, you won't be wondering when the file is either. Gelernter, a computer science professor at Yale University, also champions the cause of beauty in computing. Simplicity instead of complexity, context as well as content. He faults computer programmers of the last two decades for sacrificing beauty for the sake of clunkier, unfriendly programming. |  | He wants to revolutionize the way we compute and manage information by developing a concept he calls "Lifestreams," which would replace the conventional, spatially arranged "desktop" concept with a system that combines cyberspace and time: when instead of where. All files would be organized chronologically -- instead of needing to remember where you filed an important letter, knowing that you wrote it just after you got back from vacation would be enough to locate it.
Do today's software offerings have such major flaws? Would a new filing system make things all that much better? And do ordinary people really care if their software is "elegant" as long as it gets the job done? Tune into this hour of Science Friday for a conversation with David Gelernter about the state of the software industry and new technological advances, and how he and others see the future of your computing world.
We asked:
How would you like to see computer interfaces changed?
Here's what you said...
Guests:
David Gelernter
Author, "Machine
Beauty: Elegance and the Heart of Technology"
Professor of Computer Science
Yale University
New Haven, CT
Books/Articles Discussed:
"Machine
Beauty : Elegance and the Heart of Technology," by David Gelernter.
Harper Collins, 1998.
Related Links:
Lifestreams
Association for Computing Machinery
Software Publisher's Association
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