AIC Seminar Series

In antiquity, computer scientists believed that programs principally were shaped by natural law. Later, the dominant influence on software design and implementation was seen either as social convention or market imperatives, dividing the craft of software between the cathedral and the bazaar. These beliefs have proven unsatisfactory either for guiding our aspirations or for understanding our predicaments; we built a software factory only to find ourselves sleeping on its floor amid rumors that it will soon close and move somewhere else. The division between what we believe and enjoy, and what we claim to believe and think we ought to enjoy, is nowhere greater than in nobitic software, software we use to write for ourselves and (perhaps) for our intimate circle, for me and you and everyone we know.

Mark Bernstein is chief scientist at Eastgate Systems, Inc., where he designs Tinderbox, a tool for making, analyzing, and sharing notes. Since 1982, Eastgate has crafted tools for hypertext writing and published original literary hypertext fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Bernstein is program chair for Culture and Communication of the ACM Hypertext ’08, and program chair of ACM WikiSym ’08, and is currently at work on a book on The Natural History of Links. His last book, The Tinderbox Way, explores the design and use of Tinderbox. A graduate of Swarthmore College, he received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Harvard University.