GRAVITY TWENTY SIX -- Monday, October 12, 1992

Systems today.

I'll give you a development example. You run a ThoughtShop in Chicago called "The Chicago Folk Hostel". It's essentially set up for information relating to folk music, with a text discussion network that links songs for sale.

Someone on the ThoughtShop gets an idea for a system extension. Wouldn't it be great if there were a way to interrelate themes found in folk lyrics? You could feed in a few phrases and the system would suggest other songs. Your lyric mentions weather, and up pops "I can gather all the news I need on the weather report" (The Only Living Boy In New York, Simon and Garfunkel). That song gets you thinking and your next bit of lyric is about feeling isolated from it all, and up pops "You think that nobody knows where you are, girl/ You think that nobody knows how this feels" (Gravity, Rickie Lee Jones). This song gets you thinking about waiting on a subway platform and your next few lines bring up "You will wander around/ And it won't be the same/ All the signs will be down/ And it's starting to rain" (Something To Believe In, Shawn Colvin). And on and on... there's a lot of writing that could be done with a system like this.

A group of developers on a connected ThoughtShop decide to take on the challenge. They start creating the system. I don't have time to go into the sort of software development environment I've got planned out, but for those in the know, it'll remind you of Smalltalk. I freaked out when I found out about Smalltalk three years ago. There's a lot of similiarity, and of course I thought at the time, "Criminy, someone beat me to it." But after a few years of Smalltalk, I'm comfortable. Gravity is not Smalltalk.

But it's important to bring Smalltalk up, as it's the only example I know
of a truly extensible environment. Filing Smalltalk code into a system is
a lot like Get'ing a system in Gravity. Both make changes on the fly. Both can be done from a remote location. Both have the ability to change nearly everything about the receiving environment.

So let's say these developer boys put together the SongLink system on their own ThoughtShop. It's tested. It works for the songs they got (heavy metal with a death and destruction bent). They're ready to give Chicago a try.

Their SongLink agent, let's call it Axle, has to teach the Chicago ThoughtShop how to perform this song association feat. An agent in Chicago is told to learn the SongLink system from Axle. We'll call this other agent Van.

Tomorrow: Van jams with Axle.