Re: Conversion filters (was NB Win availability)

["Russ W. Urquhart" urqurw@xxxxxxxx]

On Fri, Nov 05, 1999 at 02:17:39PM -0800, mike shupp wrote:
> leslie bialler wrote:
> >
> > mike shupp concluded:
> >
> > > I's not just word processers that get left behind by "progress."
> >
> > Yup. Someday, maybe 50 years from now, some guy's going to suffer a broken index finger and wonder if there isn't some way to make a computer perform operations w/o him having to resort to pointing and clicking.
> > "What if," he will say to himself, "I could simply type "copy" and then type file name and then instruct the computer where to copy it to. . . . hmm and hmm, might _just_ be possible."
>
>
> Amusing... but I'd hope in 50 years software would have moved on to the
> point where we needn't concern ourselves with such low-level
> activities. We don't really want to copy and merge files and move them
> about, for example; we want up-to-date financial records and stamp
> catalogs and print-ready manuscripts. How much better it would be if we
> could simply give such high level commands-- ideally orally-- and let
> our computers
> figure out for themselves how our desires should be satisfied.
>
> Consider all this recent discussion of word processor file conversion
> filters, for example. Is there any sane reason why we humans ought
> to pay attention to such details? Note that the quite comparable
> process of shipping data packets around the internet to produce
> pretty pictures and sounds and information displays on our monitors
> takes place, for the most part, without the slightest need for user
> intervention.

I'd hope in 50 years we'd get to where you're talking about, but i've been getting cynical lately.
I've been messing with pc's for the last 15 years, and programming in general, before that. As far
as the pc's go, i've always been messing with filters and converting files. I've always been helping
people convert graphics files to different formats. And, while we do INDEED send packets of info all
over the place, i've helped people, and still see people wanting to convert HTML files to other
formats and back again....

So, do i think we'll make it in 50 years? I dunno. But to quote someone else, ".... we were
supposed to have had colonies on the moon by the end of the century. We're not going to make it...
But we have the Internet!!"

Cynical Russ




>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------
>
> Mike Shupp
> Graduate Student, Dept of Anthropology
> California State University, Northridge
> ms44278@xxxxxxxx
> http://www.csun.edu/~ms44278/index.htm