Toekomstvoorspellingen over omgang met computers

Edge.org heeft een zeer interessant artikel gepubliseerd. In het artikel staat in 58 punten beschreven hoe David Gelernter (computerwetenschapper en docent) denkt dat we over een tijdje met computers om zullen gaan. Zo heeft hij revolutionaire ideeën over het bestandssysteem. Bestandsnamen zouden niet verplicht moeten zijn, en een file zou ook in meerdere directories tegelijk kunnen staan. Of juist in geen één:

If you have three pet dogs, give them names. If you have 10,000 head of cattle, don't bother. Nowadays the idea of giving a name to every file on your computer is ridiculous.

A file should be allowed to have no name, one name or many names. Many files should be allowed to share one name. A file should be allowed to be in no directory, one directory, or many directories. Many files should be allowed to share one directory. Of these eight possibilities, only three are legal and the other five are banned — for no good reason.

You shouldn't have to put files in directories. The directories should reach out and take them. If a file belongs in six directories, all six should reach out and grab it automatically, simultaneously.[break]Verder moeten bestanden niet op naam gezocht kunnen worden, maar op inhoud. Hiervoor zal alle informatie worden opgeslagen in één lange "stroom", die weer is onderverdeeld in substromen. Die substromen zijn in weze gelijk aan de huidige directories, alleen zal een "bestand" in meerdere stromen aanwezig kunnen zijn en zullen de stromen het bestand automatisch pakken als het langskomt:[/break]Elements stored in a mind do not have names and are not organized into folders; are retrieved not by name or folder but by contents. (Hear a voice, think of a face: you've retrieved a memory that contains the voice as one component.) You can see everything in your memory from the standpoint of past, present and future. Using a file cabinet, you classify information when you put it in; minds classify information when it is taken out. (Yesterday afternoon at four you stood with Natasha on Fifth Avenue in the rain — as you might recall when you are thinking about "Fifth Avenue," "rain," "Natasha" or many other things. But you attached no such labels to the memory when you acquired it. The classification happened retrospectively.) A "lifestream" organizes information not as a file cabinet does but roughly as a mind does.

To send email, you put a document on someone else's stream. To add a note to your calendar, you put a document in the future of your own stream. To continue work on an old document, put a copy at the head of your stream. Sending email, updating the calendar, opening a document are three instances of the same operation (put a document on a stream).

A substream (for example the "Fifth Avenue" substream) is like a conventional directory — except that it builds itself, automatically; it traps new documents as they arrive; one document can be in many substreams; and a substream has the same structure as the main stream — a past, present and future; steady flow.

Zeer vooruitstrevende gedachtes dus. Ik ben erg benieuwd wat ervan werkelijkheid zal worden en of over bijvoorbeeld 25 jaar dit artikeltje automatisch jullie "stream" binnen komt stromen. En dit is nog lang niet alles van wat David te vertellen had. Lees het hier verder. Ik moet het nog maar zien hoor. Dank aan Jan Klaassen die dit leuke nieuws submitte.