On Wed, 15 Feb 2012 13:18:24 +0100 Lasse Scherffig <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi empyre, > > although we are already in week 2 of the in/compatible discussion, I > briefly want to get back last week's question of "honesty": > > > 1. What does honesty/transparency mean in the context of so many > > layers of abstraction? Is there any honesty in there, or is a > > computational system a simulacrum? No matter how much you expose > > to the user, there will always be something hidden. I'd just like to add another quick response to this forgive/ignore me if this goes without saying. It is in the nature of software to hide abstraction. I would say dishonest software misleads people through abstractions. Open source software for example mostly does not mislead people about the abstraction and it is possible to show the abstractions quite easily. Misleading software - I'm thinking Apple and their hardware too, in particular - does hide the abstractions and does not allow inspection (though I'm speaking with extremely little usage experience)... ... well it seems I'm starting to go over ground already covered more expertly by others on the list... I don't recall any mention about usability experts. There's some tension between usability experts and developers that might be interesting for some - especially in /free/libre/open/source/software. That's why you've got distributions like Ubuntu, Arch, and Gentoo. All going in different directions regarding users and the abstractions their expected to understand. James. _______________________________________________ empyre forum [email protected] http://www.subtle.net/empyre
