What's in a name?

[Mike Prince]

On Tue, 8 Nov 1994, Jecel Mattos de Assumpcao Jr. wrote:

> So Merlin's goals were defined as bringing computing to new users
> by making it more attractive ( easier to understand and able to
> do more for them ). With that defined, it was possible to think
> about strategies. When facing two technologies, it is not possible
> to say which is better is you don't know what you want. You can't
> say "which is better" but "which fits our goals better".
> 
> The use of a very simple protection model rather than capabilities
> ( or a Unix like system ) and a parallelism model where object=process
> are examples of where the "best technologies" didn't help the goals
> and were not chosen.
> 
> So, what are TUNES goals, again?

Jecel has a good point here.  A lot of us (myself included) take pride in 
making parts of computers work better (building better mouse traps).  We 
do need to look at the BIG picture.

This in part goes back to an earlier comment about the necessity of
marketability.  Another comment was to focus on some applications and then
have our project cater to that application.

We are all saying essentially the same thing.  Would is our product going 
to do well for the end user?  Then our focus can be the development of 
enabling technologies.

"So, what are TUNES goals, again?"

Here's a try at a few, more to get the juices flowing than a solid push 
for these particular goals.

WhatEverOurNameIs:  The freedom to explore your dreams.
	Use real-time visualization to create video clips,
	voice recognition, AI, (I am not even close to being an expert, 
	in these, but I'd like to provide the horsepower).

WhatEverOurNameIs:  The world at your finger tips.  (I believe in 
	recycling)  A very Net-aware system, with connectivity to everything.
	Easy interfaces to remote objects.

Here's a minor detail though.  Let's say we are the greatest visionaries 
in the Galaxay, and come up with the ultimate goal.  There is a good 
chance one of the big players will also be attacking that goal with the 
added advantage of very deep pockets.  Not that we should shy away, but 
don't get into fights we can't win.

On our side though, is that we are not under a deadline, and we don't 
have to support a base of installed users.  So we can create a product 
from scratch that is very tight.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye, A Call For Goals, Let's brainstorm this one for a few 
days and come up with a list of end-user goals, like the above, and a 
list of technical goals, like I proposed a few days ago.  Again, I'll 
collect these into one fat file of two lists.

I look forward to your ideas,

Mike