"Software design is taught in the wrong department. Interactive software is a branch of cinema.

It requires the ability to capture events on the screen that affect the hearts and minds of the viewers. Software needs to be created by people who know how to present things - how to captivate the human mind by using the simplest, most universal means. And simplification is very hard.

Fundamentally, simplification requires someone in charge. It requires iron-fisted authority.

That's a movie director. Without authority, the work of the cinematographer, writer, set designer, actor, and choreographer fall into a shapeless, dysfunctional mess. Sound familiar?

In software, we're at the same stage as the movie industry in 1905 - the cameraman was in charge because he was the one who understood the equipment."

Ted Nelson

Starting Over: Toward a True Electronic Literature
Theodor Holm Nelson
Keynote address DAC 2001
Fourth Annual Digital Arts and Culture Conference Brown University, Providence Rhode Island
April 26-28 2001
Notes by Greg Lloyd: http://traction.tractionsoftware.com/pub/grl/NelsonDAC01D.pdf