On contrary software designed to be a fully integrated ecosystem meant to be extended indefinitively and refactored indefinitely in the same codebase, at any level, user programming level included regularly (even if rarely) show they can do countless things with simplicity and power. Oh, sure they are hard to design and evolve at first, BUT they pay back so much.
These stories put side-by-side clearly show the complete failure of the software divide et imper commercial model and the need of classic desktop computing as designed back then by Xerox and kept up by Symbolics and co. Some in the unix land have seen that late and try to correct the aim a bit with Plan 9 but they fail. Nowadays the modern web with a substantial U-turn from widget-based UIs to document based ones, modern Uis in general, are another small brick few seem to see. In a decade perhaps we will back at original desktop model have forgotten it from the past...
On contrary software designed to be a fully integrated ecosystem meant to be extended indefinitively and refactored indefinitely in the same codebase, at any level, user programming level included regularly (even if rarely) show they can do countless things with simplicity and power. Oh, sure they are hard to design and evolve at first, BUT they pay back so much.
These stories put side-by-side clearly show the complete failure of the software divide et imper commercial model and the need of classic desktop computing as designed back then by Xerox and kept up by Symbolics and co. Some in the unix land have seen that late and try to correct the aim a bit with Plan 9 but they fail. Nowadays the modern web with a substantial U-turn from widget-based UIs to document based ones, modern Uis in general, are another small brick few seem to see. In a decade perhaps we will back at original desktop model have forgotten it from the past...