Ease of developing systems and cell phones was Re: J4 - presentation/discussion on &q

On Thu, 13 Mar 2008 13:16:19 +1300, "Pete Dashwood"
<dashwood@removethis.enternet.co.nz> wrote:
 
>
>There are so many factors that COULD influence this (Robotics,
>Nanotechnology, AI, Genetics, logarithmically increasing understanding of
>physical processes, the expansion of connectivity and the Internet, the
>energy crisis, etc.) that it is unlikely that ANY particular current
>technology will last more than say, 20 years. Software Engineering will be
>no exception.
>
>I'll be happy if we reach a point where people can interact with and utilis
e
>computer power as naturally as they do a cell phone, without requiring
>technocrats and engineers to keep things running. Smart software is a step
>in the right direction and I wouldn't mind betting that, even as we are
>having this discussion, it is evolving in a software lab somewhere :-)

As someone who had to read the manual a couple of times to try to use
his cell phone and who still is enraged at the feature that key lock
doesn't mean all keys are locked, this is not necessarily ease of use.
My cell phone will call out to the last number in my called number
list if I hit the right buttons somehow with the keys locked.  This
feature seems to be required by more than one carrier because it made
the Wall Street Journal (major US business newspaper).  Thus making
things as natural as a cell phone isn't necessarily an improvement.
>
>I hope so.
>
>Pete.
Clark

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