In Traction - Latest Comments in blog@CACM

Re: blog@CACM

Holsters Guy — Wed, 20 May 2009 16:22:41 -0000

When i first read that i thought he said he didnt know he had a PHD, haha thanks for the read.

Re: blog@CACM

Jo Vermeulen — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 16:40:22 -0000

Indeed. Many HCI researchers also do research related to other fields (software engineering, machine learning, cognitive psychology, electronics, ...), although they don't necessarily contribute in those areas. I agree that there is no hard classification.

I think cross-pollination between fields is very valuable, and should be something to strive for. The example of Tim Berners-Lee inventing the Web (together with Belgian computer scientist Robert Cailliau by the way) is indeed an interesting one. It is often stated that many of the greatest inventions or insights were based on a mix between different disciplines. Another example I find interesting is the one of Alan Kay who pushed object-oriented programming forward and developed Smalltalk based on his insights from biology (complex organisms consists of billions of communicating cells or 'objects' in OOP terms). He also explored the work of Jean Piaget on constructionist learning in developing Smalltalk (and currently Squeak and Croquet) as an educational tool.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts Daniel!

Re: blog@CACM

Daniel Lemire — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 20:03:57 -0000

I don't use the HCI methodology or publish in HCI venues, but I still do some HCI:

Collaborative OLAP with Tag Clouds: Web 2.0 OLAP Formalism and Experimental Evaluation
http://arxiv.org/abs/0710.2156

Tag-Cloud Drawing: Algorithms for Cloud Visualization
http://arxiv.org/abs/cs.DS/...

Anyhow, I don't believe in "having an area." People have skills and interests. We can cluster people... but there are no hard-code classification.

If people stuck to their areas, Tim Berner-Lee would have been stuck in Physics. Instead, he branched out into knowledge management and invented the Web.

That is maybe the lesson in the Patrick Baudisch quote.