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Comment by mmiller | Hacker News Reader

I think one thing that scared him away was the word "relevant"... VIM might have as well (very primitive). Emacs tries to do some things that are worth doing, but it brings the user into "textland," not "systemland."

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Are we in a "textland" or a "systemland" when we have these symbolic conversations on HN across space and time?

More "textland" than anything else, though that has to do with the medium we're using to communicate "across space and time." What Alan has advocated is that the medium we're using in this particular instance should be a version of "systemland."

Imagine we had this "systemland" in place, what kind of communication experience we might have?

(For example, I came back to this thread from email notification.)

It's difficult at this point to come up with an example, since we don't have it yet (that I know of), but to give you an idea, take a look at Lively Kernel https://www.lively-kernel.org/

If you want a demo, you can take a look here:

https://youtu.be/QTJRwKOFddc

Yes I have seen it when it first came out. Very impressive.

However, IMHO, there are a few limitations with these "desktop" type of environments:

1. Limited I/O capability.

2. Limited Network capability.

3. Limited mobility.

Follow the trails outlined by Bret Victor: http://worrydream.com/TheHumaneRepresentationOfThought/note.... , it seems that we are yet to find the "systemland" for the future.

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