I have long been alarmed by people's sheeplike acceptance of the term 'computer technology' - it sounds so objective and inexorable - when most computer technology is really a bunch of ideas turned into conventions and packages. Ted Nelson More Quotes by Ted Nelson More Quotes From Ted Nelson Learning to program has no more to do with designing interactive software than learning to touch type has to do with writing poetry Ted Nelson program design writing Any fool can use a computer. Many do. Ted Nelson fool technology use Let me introduce the word 'hypertext' to mean a body of written or pictorial material interconnected in such a complex way that it could not conveniently be presented or represented on paper. Ted Nelson body paper mean The good news about computers is that they do what you tell them to do. The bad news is that they do what you tell them to do. Ted Nelson classroom news computer The technicalities matter a lot, but the unifying vision matters more. Ted Nelson unifying vision matter The World Wide Web is precisely what we were trying to PREVENT. We long ago foresaw the problems of one-way links, links that break (no guaranteed long-term publishing), no way to publish comments, no version management, no rights management. Ted Nelson rights trying world If computers are the wave of the future, displays are the surfboards. Ted Nelson wave computer ifs I am a design chauvinist. I believe that good design is magical and not to be lightly tinkered with. The difference between a great design and a lousy one is in the meshing of the thousand details that either fit or don't, and the spirit of the passionate intellect that has tied them together, or tried. That's why programming - or buying software - on the basis of "lists of features" is a doomed and misguided effort. The features can be thrown together, as in a garbage can, or carefully laid together and interwoven in elegant unification, as in APL, or the Forth language, or the game of chess. Ted Nelson garbage-cans differences believe Right now you are a prisoner of each application you use. You have only the options that were given you by the developer of that application. Ted Nelson prisoner given use Power corrupts, and obsolete power corrupts obsoletely. Ted Nelson power-corrupts obsolete computer We live in media, as fish live in water. Ted Nelson fishes media water Intertwingularity is not generally acknowledged - people keep pretending they can make things deeply hierarchical, categorizable and sequential when they can't. Everything is deeply intertwingled. Ted Nelson pretending emptiness people The four walls of paper are like a prison because every idea wants to spring out in all directions - everything is connected with everything else, sometimes more than others. Ted Nelson wall spring ideas The problem is not software 'friendliness'. It is conceptual clarity. A globe does not say, 'good morning'. It is simple and clear, not 'friendly'. Ted Nelson simple friendly morning Most people are fools, most authority is malignant, God does not exist, and everything is wrong. Ted Nelson fool doe people They were saying computers deal with numbers. This was absolutely nonsense. Computers deal with arbitrary information of any kind. Ted Nelson arbitrary information numbers Everybody has only a 24-hour day. Most people, if they increase consumption of one medium (like magazines or books) will cut down on another (like TV). This drastically reduces the sort of growth some people have been expecting. Ted Nelson cutting book people So, the point was to be able to have a medium that would record all the connections and all the structures and all the thoughts that paper could not. Since the computer could hold any structure in any form, this was the way to go. Ted Nelson connections records paper The purpose of computers is human freedom. Ted Nelson computer humans purpose History is fractal. The closer you look, the more complicated, yet always repeating patterns. Ted Nelson patterns complicated looks
