For those criticizing, think of this updated website more from the lens of art, less pragmatics. The Doug Engelbart "Mother of All Demos" functioned in this way as well. Can you imagine scoffing at Engelbart in the same way? There are quite a few deep ideas in this presentation of Dynamicland, many of which are subtle and take some effort to find and appreciate, much like art.
Yes, it is intended to be useful to many one day, and they claim it "actually works" _now_, but if you read carefully (and you should!), they are trying very hard to maintain (and gradually grow) a beautiful little flame of a vision. PARC, on the other hand, had 10 years. Afterwards, industry ran with the ideas they wanted, and Alan Kay has been beating the "you missed the big ideas!" drum since. The Dynamicland group is trying to learn from this lesson of history.
Yes, it is intended to be useful to many one day, and they claim it "actually works" _now_, but if you read carefully (and you should!), they are trying very hard to maintain (and gradually grow) a beautiful little flame of a vision. PARC, on the other hand, had 10 years. Afterwards, industry ran with the ideas they wanted, and Alan Kay has been beating the "you missed the big ideas!" drum since. The Dynamicland group is trying to learn from this lesson of history.
Kudos to the group.