Reading about Proteus notebook by Thomas Erickson like exploring a Standard Template Construct from the Age of Technology. I've read this text at 2010 - and was impressed. Comparing now and then feel like a whole era has passed.

@ 2015-12-12 13:31 Dialectics of personal information system

The other day I finally found time to "pull" and transform the diaries that I kept in WinOrg software into my plain text files. My system now spans nine years. Diaries, weblogs, notes structured by dates, topics and categories from 2006 till the current year. I think that when I get my hands on it and I have free time I will be able to expand it for another two or three years (2004, 2005 - even before I started using WinOrg). 

Interesting to trace how the system of storing notes has developed - fortunately, more than ten years provide food for thought. [Five years ago] (https://tengu911.wordpress.com/2010/08/02/maps/) I came across notes from Apple engineer Erickson (1999) about the Proteus electronic notebook he wrote for himself and then gradually adapted for himself, adding different features.

Erickson noticed that from a simple, understandable application for everyone, his notebook turned into something purely individual, but very useful for him personally. In addition, he noticed another interesting point - not only did his workflow affect the notebook, but the capabilities of the notebook also affected his workflow. That is, it is impossible. By this time, Erickson had been working on the notebook for three years and he was interested in where this evolution would take him next.

in he's own words:

> When I began using Proteus, I had a relatively simple application that was easy to use and to explain to others. Now, Proteus is much more complex; it has quite a few features that are useful only to me, and that make the interface more complex and difficult to learn for anyone else. In the process of being customized for my purposes, Proteus has shifted from being usable (by anyone) to being useful (to me). 

> This raises some interesting questions. How general is this tradeoff between simplicity and usability on the one hand, and specialization and complexity on the other? Will technologies like OpenDoc, which promise to support customization, manifest this trend? Or, less generally, suppose that three years ago I had been magically given Proteus as it is structured today: would I have found it either usable or useful? I suspect the answer is no. My guess is that my work practices had to gradually evolve in consonance with the structure and function of Proteus. That is, rather than this being a process of me gradually customizing Proteus to my needs, it feels more like a process of co-evolution in which the electronic notebook and my work practices have mutually conditioned one another. For example, as previously noted, the use of Proteus resulted in me being more willing to attend large meetings, and in turn, more frequent use of Proteus in large meetings resulted in various adaptations for more effective use 
in such situations (e.g., an easy way to turn the sound off).