Digital Revolution

Digital revolution has transformed many fields. Publishing, TV, even finance all experienced the power and benefits of widespread and deep integration of digital technology. However, there is a area most suitable for digitization and yet successfully resisted it for decades. That's our library. Many technologies tried to transform libraries. The web was designed to freely exchange knowledge, and web sites like arXiv successfully delivered, for papers. But, the main form of preservation of our knowledge is still books. For a number of reasons, the web only succeeded in mass selling print books. The claim made by Turing Award winner Tim Berners-Lee that the web succeeds as a public library remains void. Tablets made another step forward regarding the ergonomics of reading, and yet print still lives very well. A useful example is the presentation of technical documents. Knuth was appalled that distributors sold The Art of Computer Programming in ePub with poor typesetting. The soluti...

So far, there are two broad approaches to app GUI. The approach adopted by Apple is to produce two different apps oriented toward cursor and touch, respectively. The approach adopted by Microsoft is to produce a single app. From the perspective of usability, Apple clearly triumphs over Microsoft. The fundamental characteristic difference between mouse and finger calls for distinct sets of GUI considerations. Mouse may perform double click that's awkward for fingers. Imprecise fingers often justify big buttons that appear dumb for mice. Although Microsoft Surface might cost less than a MacBook plus a iPad, the user experience simply isn't right. From the perspective of app programming, there is a case for Microsoft's universal approach that a single app is easier to maintain than two apps. Apple partially addressed the issue with the introduction of M1 that may run iOS apps on macOS, at the cost of clumsy GUI. There is a possible third approach that separates app logic and G...