Like many mid-30-year-old geeks out there, one of the shows I grew up on was Star Trek: The Next Generation. As I look around our current technology landscape, I am constantly reminded of the picture of technology that was visualized in that setting (and what led to it).
From phones:
To portable data storage:
To readers
To tablets:
Life really does tend to imitate art.
The Declarative Cockpit
Today I was informed of a new product that is soon to enter the market - the Tesla model S. This is an all-electric vehicle. It is quite impressive all around. But what I found most interesting about it was the interior of the cabin:
As we become a touch-screen-centric society, it seems we keep getting closer and closer to user interfaces we all thought were rediculous. Flying a shuttlecraft with a touch-only interface, how could that be done? Never, give me my hard buttons. That's what we all said. Sure, it looks neat, but it's just not practical.
Or is it? Our problem is we still think we are driving the car. We still think we should be driving the car. But we don't react fast. We don't really understand what goes on under the hood, and for most of us, that's a good thing. One thing that you want to do in software development, at least in some methodologies, is to encapsulate the imperative work - how you do a task - and create a consumable package that consumers will interact with using a declarative model - the consumer only says what they want to happen.
We are but a few layers of abstraction away from the runabout user interface. I welcome the change. I'm tired of waiting.
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