At 06:39 PM 2/24/2001, Scott Brim wrote:
On Sat, Feb 24, 2001 at 04:47:42PM -0800, Eliot Lear wrote:
> You know, the people on this list make great computer scientists, network
> architects, application and protocol designers. I'm not so sure how
many of
> us understand CHI. Some of us like to think we do, but I suspect very few
> of us actually do. So, given this, why don't we ask some people who really
> DO understand this problem to come up with a decent recommendation, rather
> than perennially flaming about it? Then we can ask them to help us with
> NATs ;-)
But CHI is only a secondary issue. The primary issue is the best format
for archives. We want something which is not likely to be superceded by
something better in a few years.
Well, respectfully, I disagree... Only I don't think (in this case) CHI
stands for Computer Human Interface, I think rather it should stand for
Communication Human Interface...
If the archives were able to contain the content of the communication -
renderable by whatever display limitations/personal preferences were
applicable at each moment - then we would have truly achieved something...
Somehow, I have this idea that I'm talking to a list of the best and
brightest of our industry... that we have (collectively) engineered
protocols that allow communications using wires and wireless, that have
enabled things that were impossible within the memory of most present
here... So, now let's up the ante. Communication is more than bits on a
wire. At the highest sense, it's the ability to move information from the
brain of one individual to the brain of another.
Are we, as computer scientists, incapable of coming up with a format that
allows us to describe very rich content (including text, images, animated
images, even 3D images (and animated ones - 6 degrees of freedom), etc. -
whatever it takes...) and then to render it appropriately for displays that
range from capable to incapable...????
Wouldn't this be a better thing for us to be working on than fighting over
whether we should keep everything in ASCII...???
From,
One who totally doesn't get it...
:-)
Stephen
Stephen McHenry
e-mail: stephen(_at_)cacheware(_dot_)com
www.cacheware.com