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“HTML on the internet has gone back to the dark ages, because it presupposes that there should be a browser that should understand its formats. This has to be one of the worst ideas since MS-DOS.  This is really a shame … it’s maybe what happens when physicists are allowed to play with computers.”

The depressing thing is not that he was right then but that not much has changed since then for the same reason that he is suggesting.  Prior art which was done by real innovators is ignored.  There is an ongoing land-grab to build the next “right way” to do things.  Perhaps the most obvious of this is that we are still amid “browser wars which are 100% irrelevant”.

All of this is from a scientific / engineering perspective of course.  From a cultural and social perspective, it’s been the most important event since the industrial revolution.  But Dr Kay is right — “the computer revolution hasn’t happened yet”.  Watch the entire thing at the link below (it is very much worth it), or click play on this embedded version to see the relevant excerpt.

references

• http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2950949730059754521 (clip to the right starts at 21m15s in)