May 27, 2007

Why Ted Nelson hates "cut" and "paste"

"...the problem about writing, is about re-writing. Especially re-writing.... if you are doing a novel, a book of history, an encyclopedia, the issue is not the fiddly little stuff you can do on a small window on the screen. The issue is how to massively rearrange, and keep track of large  pieces of content. Anybody who has done this, knows it has nothing to do with word processing, as  presently constituted. It has to do with being able to find all of the pieces. Being able to keep  track of where they were in previous documents and rearrange them. I have an extreme grudge against  both the parties and the Macintosh Team. When they came out with the Macintosh, they also ruined two  holy words. My first job was as a copy boy for the New York Times. Between my first and second years  of college. The very first thing I would do every morning would be to fill the paste pots. What did  you do with the paste pots? You cut and you pasted. What did that mean? It meant taking a draft, and  cutting it, and taking all of the pieces in front of you on the table. Then saying this should go  here, that is probably the best lead.....getting the sequence of materials as a parallel  consideration of all of the parts. Looking at them simultaneously. Then using physical paste to put  them in order. This process was used by everybody. According to one source, Tolstoy would cut up his  manuscripts and he would leave them along. He would make two copies. His two daughters would take  his dictation, then he’d save one for the file. Then cut up the other and leave all of the pieces of  it all over the floor of his dacha, as he walked into the woods he’d call back. Don’t touch my  noodles. This was cut and paste as it has been carried on by time by serious writers. So what did  they do when they devised an abdominal mechanism for transporting stuff between one application to  another. A place where you would put things of which you couldn’t see the contents, and which would  destroy what ever was previously there if you had forgot that there was something there. Why did  they call it a clipboard? Except for it resembled a clipboard in every respect except you could  couldn’t see it and it would destroy it, the things that were there before. Unfortunately now, there  are no other respects." 

Posted by richard at May 27, 2007 10:02 PM
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