Ted Nelson

1937– · American information technologist, philosopher, and sociologist

Topics: software design, web development, programming, simplicity

• A user interface should be so simple that a beginner in an emergency can understand it within 10 seconds.

  — Ted Nelson

• We should not impose regularity where it does not exist.

  — Ted Nelson

• [Of the web] It's massively successful. It is trivially simple. Massively successful like karaoke - anybody can do it.

  — Ted Nelson

• I have long been alarmed by people’s sheeplike acceptance of the term ‘computer technology’ — it sounds so objective and inexorable — when most computer technology is really a bunch of ideas turned into conventions and packages.

  — Ted Nelson

• The World Wide Web was precisely what we were trying to PREVENT— ever-breaking links, links going outward only, quotes you can't follow to their origins, no version management, no rights management.

  — Ted Nelson

• If computers are the wave of the future, displays are the surfboards.

  — Ted Nelson

• Everything is deeply intertwingled.

  — Ted Nelson