This is slighty off-topic, but hey! this is web2.0 
and i have a keyboard 
The typically unnoticed but subtly observable property of the description of the Dynabook concept is the simplicity of the inventor’s language, which stands out in stark contrast to even the comments of users discussing about contemporary notebook specifications and how these compare with the original classic.
After you read the above paragraph, some of you must have felt that I’ve used too many big words.
I could have stated it like this too:
Many people might miss this one - the Dynabook author actually used much simpler words than we use today for chats on netbooks.
I’ll also add a flamebait - something for people to quarrel about.
If all important technical knowledge is re-worded in simple English, many more people will be able to use it. Not only that, translating the content into other languages will be very easy.
I have a very strong personal complaint:
Big words are a barrier to the spread of knowledge.
A few reasons cause this, among others:
- Unnecessary use of Latin and Greek
- -tion and -ology terms where simpler words would work equally well.
- more than two adjectives
- trying to pack ideas into one sentence because we do not have time to elaborate everything - the blackbox excuse or the block diagram excuse - use of a concept-zoom pattern is a good idea.
Examples:
polymorphism - many-faced, multi-purpose
encapsulation - boxed, inside-box and outside-box
inheritance - cloned with modifications
(Don’t jump to point out the difference in meanings of ‘clone’ and ‘inheritance’, I know those things - sit back, think a bit - try to see the point I’m making.)
Most intellectuals will cry foul, scream in disgust, or call this a waste of their time. Agreed. No argument. This isn’t for them.
They probably do the big thinking. Unfortunately, they use terminology/jargon heavily, and so most of their work remains out of public gaze and (gasp!) public reach.
The point I’m trying to make is that normal guys have brains too.
But they might not have the vocabulary. Learning the vocabulary is such a scary idea that they don’t take it up.
This, in complex words, is disguised intellectual discrimination amounting to virtually deliberate obfuscation of ordinary thought systems by use of verbose terminology.
In simple words, simple thoughts hidden behind big words.
Like Wall Street hid gambling and betting behind terms like Futures, derivatives, products and investments.
Just as there is a shockingly vast divide between the quality of ends and the much-superior quality of means used to achieve those ends, there is a similar divide between the exclusiveness of terminology and the actual ideas those terms are used to explain.
In short, like economics, software engineering is math and common sense made difficult.
I don’t know if this deliberate or not (hence virtual above), but it is bad. There must exist a middle level translation system that makes things easy to understand and without referring to dictionaries and glossaries. That’s old school. Ineffective. Feudal. Cruel. Discriminatory. Baggage. Bad karma
What would it take to simplify things?
Wikipedia is a good platform. Blogs are another. But keeping on top of about 200 blogs, even via Feeds, is tough.
StackOverflow is a rocking idea. We need a SO for comp sci concepts with emphasis on simplifying words. Rewrite the books in simple language.
You will be surprised to find the kind of thinking that the intellectual serf class is capable of. A lot of the Masters degree holders guys out there are nothing but lucky chaps well versed with the routines of the day. They cannot invent or circumvent.
Contrarily, a lot of n00bs have great ideas and thinking capacity. Gaia’s laws guarantee this. Think about it. Really.
I wish there were a page listing the educational qualifications of opensource programmers when they started or developed their respective famous projects. Miguel de Icaza is a good example.
No, Bill Gates is not an example of a great drop-out - he had everything going for him. That’s not the demographic I’m talking of.
Kevin Warwick says that language is a hopeless tool to communicate thoughts - it’s more of a barrier. Visualization is much better. And Kevin thinks direct brain-to-brain transfer is most efficient, but we should rest assured that The Matrix is far away in the future.
Any ideas about how this thing can get done?
This is, indeed, quite an intellectual challenge, but it’s a smaller beast than getting Wikipdeia to where it is today, or, hopefully taking Stackoverflow to wherever it will go in a couple of years.
My two cents. YMMV.
.