Layer upon Layer

One of the things that stuck with me from the book I read several months ago "What Technology Wants" is  how written word has contributed to science.  Kelly makes what seems like an obvious point now that without written text we would constantly have to rediscover things.    However,  now we can write down the formula or the methodology or the theorem or proof and it becomes part of the science that following generations can build upon as "fact".     This means the very next thing that is built is just a culmination  of all the work that has happend prior.  

The same is true of the tools and "technology" of today.    The iphone has become one of the best things for technology because it's made it simple enough that even a toddler can use it.   The person who designs the hardware or even the interface doesn't have to know anything about code or processors or any of the lower level technology.  It's been built by prior programers and while always being enhanced by each contributor, those programers allow us to have postions like designers, and User Interface people.

In this way each advance in the tools allows the next people who come along to build something, faster, easier or better looking.   Only in recent years have we seen the rise of the importance of the designer.   That's because before when we were just laying out text on a screen, and data input via keyboard there wasn't that many choices to make.   Technology begets more technology and more jobs for people to focus on different areas of the technology.   There was a time when everyone in computers were a programers, but then we needed more hardware people, network people, database people, help desk, trainers, project managers, designers.   Evolution of the tech, involves evolution of the tools and ultimately the people who use those tools.