Tuesday Sep 28, 2004
Tuesday Sep 28, 2004
15 years ago this week, September 1989, we started shipping OpenWindows Rev 1.
At the time, I was a huge fan of SunView, my first and only windowing
system on any hardware. As a techy, I had customised my setup as
completely as possible,
right down to keyboard assignments and icon designs.
Eventually, kicking and fighting, I was forced to transition to OpenWindows. Remember, I tend to be a "Late Adopter", but am also quite happy to be a "Never Adopter". I stayed on SunView as long as possible....
I don't even remember when CDE came lumbering over the horizon. But, suffice it to say, after trying to be a good corporate bunny by using it, I became a confirmed lifetime fan of OpenWindows.
Then something funny happened....
At the Sun Network 2003 event in Berlin, I saw a demo of an amazingly cool user interface. Looking Glass simply blew me away... me, and about 6000 other people there!
Jonathan is letting everyone know another transition to our desktops is coming soon. And it looks okay. Yup, the Java Desktop System is coming... another transition... You know, I might not fight it this time. :-)
Long Forgotten Skills
Referencing my previous post about over learned skills, there is another interesting aspect of skills that fascinates me. It's the sudden reappearance of old, unused, supposedly "forgotten" skills.
During my German studies, there were often times when, if at a lost for words, I would suddenly switch to French! Now, this in itself is amazing since it was in the mid 1970's that I studied French in high school and I rarely have used it since. Yet, there it was again, popping up out of nowhere when I couldn't find the German words...
Do old bits of knowledge really fall onto the floor while new bits get shoved in? Apparently not always...
Over Learned Skills
Having posted off my final written exam paper for my Open University German language course, and feeling pretty confident about the quality, I drove to work this morning feeling fairly relaxed.
As I drove, I realised that there is a huge gap between the quality of my driving skills and my German language skills. My driving skills are "over learned skills". It is "second nature". I can do it in my sleep. (Not really, but you get the picture.)
My German language skills, however, are taxing to exercise. I have to think through each sentence, translating as I go, worrying my way through genders, conjugation, and word order. They are light years away from becoming over learned skills.
At work, I recently encountered a situation where I was struggling to remember a simple keystroke sequence in "vi". The sequence was one I had over learned to the point of no longer actually knowing what the sequence was... My fingers just did it. Unfortunately, I was on a different (German) style keyboard where the finger movement required was different. I was at a loss...
Georg and I sometimes get caught out by over learned skills when we swap cars. Our running joke is to "roll down" the window to check for rain after the wipers are noisily scraped across the dry windscreen when really it was the turn indicator that was needed.
Over learned skills in the use of desktop software are a joy for helping maintain efficient work levels. So, there is a risk that application changes can cause a slowdown. The challenge for application designers is to maximise the usefulness of the application while minimising the time it takes to get the users back to where they can do their job in their sleep....
...You know what I mean.