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When the history of computing is written, one inspiration for the creation of Java technology will be the work of David Gelernter. Both his Linda programming language and his book, Mirror Worlds, have been cited by Java technology luminaries as important spurs to thought. Gelernter, a professor of computer science at Yale and chief scientist at Mirror Worlds Technologies, is renowned for his insight into the relationship between information technology and the nature of the human mind. To put it simply, he always seems to be a step ahead. Sun Microsystems' Bill Joy described him as "one of the most brilliant and visionary computer scientists of our time." And virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier characterized Gelernter as "the most thoughtful and articulate of the great living practitioners. He's a full-out visionary, able to present ideas as wild and on the edge as anyone." The author of many books, Gelernter has more recently articulated a vision of information technology that goes beyond the Web and our current world of files and folders to one centered around what he variously calls "life beams" or "information beams". We met with him recently to get a glimpse of his vision.
People at Sun have told me informally (but "authoritatively") that my book Mirror Worlds was one inspiration for Java technology. For Jini technology and JavaSpaces technology, the connection with our research is straightforward. In the case of the Java language itself, there are many ways in which Linda or Mirror Worlds might have been relevant. Again, I don't know the actual nature of the connection. I wish I did. The creation of the Java language was a hugely important development. And of course, there's a deep connection between Java technology and Sun that goes beyond the network per se. The most important problem in computing is how to leave the hardware behind, how to transcend the computer and not be limited by the electronic accidents that constitute its architecture. How do you make your unadulterated vision work, instead of adjusting your vision to the machine?
Information Beams
Life is a series of events in time -- a timeline with a past, present and future. The events of your life and the memories in which they're recorded aren't parceled out into directories, or typed shoeboxes. An information beam incorporates documents of all types into one (focussable) beam. The question "where did I put that piece of information?" always has exactly one answer: it's in my beam. Life isn't static. New information arrives constantly; time flows. So my beam has to flow. Or, in other words: the elements that make it up flow. They move at the rate of time. In this respect the structure is more of a "stream" than a "beam." The stream has a past, present and future. The future flows into the present into the past. If I've posted an appointment or reminder in the "future" part of the stream, eventually it flows automatically into the present where I'll notice it and be reminded, and then into the past where it's part of the permanent, searchable, browsable archive. When I acquire a new piece of "real-life" (versus electronic) information -- a new memory of (let's say) talking to Melissa on a sunny afternoon outside the Red Parrot -- I don't have to give this memory a name, or stuff it in a directory. I can use anything in the memory as a retrieval key. (I might recall this event when I think about Melissa, or sunny afternoons outside the Red Parrot.) I shouldn't have to name electronic documents either, or put them in directories. And I ought to be able to use anything in them as a retrieval key. I can "tune in" my memories anywhere; I ought to be able to tune in my information beam anywhere too, using any net-connected computer or quasi-computer. Those are the goals of our lifestream (or "information beam") project. In our view of the future, users will no longer care about operating systems or computers; they'll care about their own streams, and other people's. I can tune in my stream wherever I am. I can shuffle other streams into mine -- to the extent I have permission to use other people's streams. My own personal stream, my electronic life story, can have other streams shuffled into it -- streams belonging to groups or organizations I'm part of. And eventually I'll have, for example, newspaper and magazine streams shuffled into my stream also. I follow my own life, and the lives of the organizations I'm part of, and the news, etc., by watching the stream flow. The cybersphere is different from today's Internet insofar as it acts like a continuous medium, not a bunch of discrete points wired together. Reducing Bureaucratic Overhead
Computer-use overhead gets lower in a simple, direct sense: despite my huge and constantly-growing collection of digital stuff, I can find anything fast. The time I spend acting like a digital file clerk -- inventing names, managing directories -- goes to zero.
And I can use my machine more intelligently. When I have a digital camera full of photos, I can dump the photos into my stream, where they're interspersed with the story of my life. When I make a note to myself or need to jot something down, I can jot it down in a memo and drop it into the stream -- don't have to name it or file it; can always find it, either by searching on content or on meta-data (all stream elements are fully indexed) or by time ("that note I wrote yesterday morning"). I can use the stream's future to manage my time better. For example: I'm constantly getting email that I want to deal with, but can't deal with right now. So I copy it into the stream's future -- I put a copy at, say, tomorrow morning; come tomorrow morning, the copy appears at the "now" line. And I can boot it off into the future again. In other words, I can use the stream's future to pre-stage information for later reference or action.
We have a server-based lifestream (or "information beam") called "Scopeware"; you tune it in by pointing your browser at the stream. (No user-side downloads.) We built this system first because it has the ubiquity and communal-stream features we needed. For example: Mirror Worlds Technologies (the company) has its own stream on a server; I'm tuned into that stream now. I'm always tuned in, whenever I'm online. Wherever I can find a browser and network connection, I can tune in my entire information world. Everyone has a private view of this communal stream -- I can see my own email, files, appointments and so on; no one else can. And everyone shares access to community information: a meeting or conference call in the future (say) that involves several of us; an announcement that affects the whole company (new insurance form, picture of someone's engagement ring, scanned-in menu for a local restaurant). The communal stream is a what's-coming-up service that flows smoothly into a what's-happening-now service that flows smoothly into a what's-old (or archive or database) service. It's all shuffled together with my personal life story -- my past, present and future. We have a new desktop PC implementation also, called "Vision." It's integrated into the desktop environment and makes use of local storage and performance. We posted a free beta version at our site ("Scopeware.com") late last year and have been surprised at the number of downloads we got -- something like 10,000 in the first 8 weeks. We now have the real thing available for download at several different trim levels, and new releases on the way.
Huge numbers of "non-technical" people rely on computers not because they want to but because they have to. The great author and culture-critic George Orwell noted 60-odd years ago (and I noted in Mirror Worlds) that some people like playing with machines; some people don't. People who don't are just barely hanging on today. They need something far simpler, far more powerful than they've got today. The information beam meets their requirements - it takes most people maybe three minutes to get the idea. We know one thing for certain: there's going to be a worldwide move to next-generation information management, soon. Our software is also popular -- "popular" in a strictly preliminary sense since we've just started -- with busy "power users" who've got huge numbers of documents of all kinds. They've got to be able to accumulate new stuff without worrying about names and directories. They need to be able to find their stuff instantly, wherever they are. And they need the whole story, not just isolated documents -- without context, information makes no sense. So how does an information beam world get established? It starts with our software (naturally!); other people and companies build on it, and we do too. Of course we don't replace today's operating systems, we work with them and run on top. I realize this view is a little megalomaniac, but it helps to be slightly megalomaniac to sail against complacency. Once there are lots of beam users, the cybersphere will grow to accommodate them. Stalled Software
The Web made people forget the "fundamental theorem" of software: people care about their OWN stuff most. It's great to be able to tune in the whole world -- that was my point in my book Mirror Worlds -- but only if you can tune in your own world first. The software industry took its eye off the ball, but, to be fair, the Web was a big enough deal to distract anyone. Now it's time to get back to fundamentals. Neglecting Our Visual Capacities
Compare that to how I search my office for a document. My visual sense is key. I remember roughly where I put the document and what it looks like. Or compare this to how I interact with a magazine stand: my visual sense guides me to things that interest me. Once I've got a magazine in hand, I can flip through it and find what's interesting. If info-beams weren't visual and browsable, they'd be worthless. Each element in the stream must show you a compressed visual summary of its document; when you touch a stream element, you instantly get a larger visual summary.
It seems to me that, in general, cognitive scientists don't have a clue about human cognition. So it's hardly surprising that ITs usually don't either. They've missed the relative unimportance of logic, the huge importance of emotion, and the continuum of possibilities from logic through free-association through the hallucinations of dreaming that every mind offers. No computer will ever "think" until we build one that can hallucinate. See Also
Mirror Worlds Technologies
Biography of David Gelernter
The Second Coming - A Manifesto by David Gelernter | ||||||||||||||||||
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Sun's Bill Joy, one of the main creators of the Java language, has said, "Ever since I first saw David Gelernter's Linda programming language almost twenty years ago, I felt that the basic ideas of Linda could be used to make an important advance in the ease of distributed and parallel programming." He credits your work as an inspiration for Jini technology and JavaSpaces technology. What is your perspective on this now?
The Linda-Jini technology and Linda-JavaSpaces technology connections seem straightforward. In many ways, Sun is the leading intellectual force in the software world; both Jini technology and JavaSpaces technology are systems I admire highly, and I'm proud that our ideas were useful.
I think that Java technology developers have a better sense of beauty than any other programming language group has had for a long time. It's hardly a novel observation that Java technology, compared to the rival C-family, is vastly more elegant -- simpler and more powerful. Those were our design goals for Linda, too; Linda and tuple-space embeddings in the Java language seem natural and intuitive --although we still haven't seen the ideal "fully integrated" embedding.
