The State of the GUI

[Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa)]

A few notes:

1. I would caution against necessarily conflating "current direction of 
trends" with "the future."

2. I would caution against viewing "what the future holds" as a single 
entity to be guessed at and later revealed, rather than as "what we, the 
creators, CHOOSE for it to be."

3. Transitively, I would caution against conflating "current direction 
of trends" with "what we, the creators, should be doing." We're the 
developers. We're the creators. Leave the bandwagon-chasing and 
circular-tail-sniffing-fests to the MBAs.

4. I would caution against taking myopic, self-absorbed 
corporate-interest motivators (such as "our branding before the 
platform's branding") as higher-priority than *THE USER'S BEST INTEREST* 
when creating a product *FOR THE USERS TO USE*.

5. In any endevour of creation, at some point, you have to ask yourself: 
"Who is this being creating for? For myself/ourselves, or for the people 
who we HOPE will actually CHOOSE to use it?" Maybe the answer really is 
door #1 instead of door #2, but if so, that's when we know it's time to 
retire the "creator" hat, don an overpriced suit, go to MBA school, sit 
in a padded office, and stay far out of the way of those under you who 
have REAL expertise and REAL work to do.

6. I've noticed that your entire several-page post and you're entire 
argument regarding user-interface decisions makes absolutely ZERO 
mention whatsoever of THE USER (aside from misusing the term "UX" to 
mean "GUI API"), let alone ANY attempt at analysis whatsoever of what is 
better or worse for a user.

Summary: This is exactly what's wrong with technology.