Quote

Computers are hierarchical. We have a desktop and hierarchical files which have to mean everything.

Ted Nelson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Ted Nelson
Age: 87
Born: 1937
Born: June 17
Philosopher
Sociologist
Teacher
Paris
France
Theodor Holm Nelson
Desktop
Hierarchical
Files
Computers
Computer
Everything
Mean

More quotes by Ted Nelson

Image
The technicalities matter a lot, but the unifying vision matters more.
Ted Nelson
Image
The point is that these decisions they've made are partly for your convenience and partly for theirs and partly out of stereotypes that they carry with them from the conventions of the computer field.
Ted Nelson
Image
Learning to program has no more to do with designing interactive software than learning to touch type has to do with writing poetry
Ted Nelson
Image
We live in media, as fish live in water.
Ted Nelson
Image
The objective of hypertext research is to save the planet.
Ted Nelson
Image
So in my uncertainty, I went to graduate school and there it all happened.
Ted Nelson
Image
A user interface should be so simple that a beginner in an emergency can understand it within ten seconds.
Ted Nelson
Image
Project Xanadu is essentially my trademark. It was originally, and has returned to my arms as that.
Ted Nelson
Image
Making things easy is hard.
Ted Nelson
Image
So, I was always frustrated having to write and having to cut things. Why should you have to cut anything?
Ted Nelson
Image
The purpose of computers is human freedom.
Ted Nelson
Image
They were saying computers deal with numbers. This was absolutely nonsense. Computers deal with arbitrary information of any kind.
Ted Nelson
Image
I am looking at it from the point of view of a harried user, which I am, and I believe that I am much more like the typical non-technical harried user than I am like the people who smoothly operate everything.
Ted Nelson
Image
The good news about computers is that they do what you tell them to do. The bad news is that they do what you tell them to do.
Ted Nelson
Image
Everything is deeply intertwingled.
Ted Nelson
Image
Any fool can use a computer. Many do.
Ted Nelson
Image
Power corrupts, and obsolete power corrupts obsoletely.
Ted Nelson
Image
The problem is not software 'friendliness'. It is conceptual clarity. A globe does not say, 'good morning'. It is simple and clear, not 'friendly'.
Ted Nelson
Image
But it seemed to me that as soon as you have computer storage you could put every point you wanted in - make the ones that are less relevant to your central topic, further away or allow the central topic to move as the reader proceeded.
Ted Nelson
Image
So, what you can do in Microsoft Word is what Bill Gates has decided. What you can do in Oracle Database is what Larry Ellison and his crew have decided.
Ted Nelson