“Maybe technology will pass me by, maybe not.” This is what Dan Bricklin said back in 1986 and I’m here to report, Dan has been riding technology waves like a seasoned surfer ever since then.
Recently I visited Dan Bricklin’s personal blog and found just like always, he continues to innovate and create cutting edge software, this time for the ipad and iphone. He shares on his blog his insights into the development process and how the characteristics of the two different platforms lead to different approaches to designing software, and also some of the challenges he faced in coding his program, Note Taker HD.
Given that I’ve jumped on the app development bandwagon and begun a fun project with a group of friends, not only did I find Dan’s information useful, but I was also reminded of the early garage days of the PC platform. Today is somewhat like that with programmers moonlighting at night in hopes of making their mark on these exciting platforms. Dan is a great example of the same type of activity back in the 80s. Back then, Dan in business school had a stroke of brilliant insight and figured that taking the model of paper ledgers and creating a software spreadsheet would be a useful tool. Today we have pioneering individuals such as Ge Wang of Smule re-imagining what a musical instrument is and generating more “aha” excitement and change.
I dug back into my PAW archives and read over Dan Bricklin’s interview from 1986 and posted it today. You can find the link in the column to the right. If you go to the end, you get a real treat by seeing Dan’s original command diagram for Visicalc which was scribbled on a ledger paper. Enjoy! And thanks to Dan for all the information and insights he shares through his extensive writings on his site.
Programmers At Work 