Why we keep using GEDCOM
May 7, 2023 17:27:05 GMT -8
Post by Uncle Buddy on May 7, 2023 17:27:05 GMT -8
From a talk by Alan Kay, the inventor or the real object-oriented programming (not what they call OOP today).
He started out by asking why we are so keen to use outdated computing tools. I couldn't help but be reminded of GEDCOM. He answered his own question by stating that as recent hunter-gatherers, there is nothing in our DNA that makes us problem solvers. Our instinct is to adapt, to slap a band-aid on it and keep on keeping on. Survival has always been about adapting to problems, not building magnificent tools to start over in a new context where the problem doesn't exist.
Every time we pass a GEDCOM file in the genealogy world, we express the evolutionary wit of a caveman.
He started out by asking why we are so keen to use outdated computing tools. I couldn't help but be reminded of GEDCOM. He answered his own question by stating that as recent hunter-gatherers, there is nothing in our DNA that makes us problem solvers. Our instinct is to adapt, to slap a band-aid on it and keep on keeping on. Survival has always been about adapting to problems, not building magnificent tools to start over in a new context where the problem doesn't exist.
Every time we pass a GEDCOM file in the genealogy world, we express the evolutionary wit of a caveman.
People are rewarded in school for solving problems. When was the last time you were rewarded for finding a problem? Finding out what the real problem is is the big deal, and people will fight you every step of the way. Most problems are bogus because they come out of the current context. We're trying to get beyond the current context, so forget about problem solving, it's just a bad heuristic. It's the last thing you do.
Alan Kay, 2015: Power of Simplicity
www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdSD07U5uBs
Alan Kay, 2015: Power of Simplicity
www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdSD07U5uBs