[GuiA]

Superior in what way?

It seems that all he cares about is writing text, period. A typewriter is not good enough because editing is a pain, but Wordstar 4.0 seems to fit his needs perfectly. How is there anything wrong with that?

A lot of software is novelty-driven, because you need to sell your users on the next version. Sadly, this is often at odds with the goals software should aim to fulfill as a tool. Did we ever need a v2 for the hammer, or drafting pencil?

[dragonwriter]

> Did we ever need a v2 for the hammer, or drafting pencil?

Uh, yeah, both the pencil and the hammer not only have gone through multiple iterations over history, but have a branching family tree with real improvements for specific roles over time.

Sure, there's a lot of fluff in software (and all kinds of other products), but technology actually does bring improved tools.

[stcredzero]

A lot of software is novelty-driven

Some of it is driven by available technology. It would have been very hard to have a great spell-check functionality on early home computers, like my 48k Apple II+, simply because of the hardware.

Did we ever need a v2 for the hammer, or drafting pencil?

Hammers did indeed evolve quite a bit from their stone age original form, though the general shape and principle have remained the same.

There is a modern claw hammer halfway up the left side in this illustration from 1514:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Melencolia_I_(Durero).jpg

Drafting pencils have been around from the late 1500s:

http://leadholder.com/main-history.html#leadholder_origins

It's arguable that truly modern ones didn't appear until the 20th century, however.

[grayclhn]

Just to be a dick: yes, drafting pencils that are deliberately shaped to not roll off tables are nice, and probably not the absolute first version produced.

[chops]

I dunno. Did the first hammers have a claw? Because that's a pretty handy innovation.

[GuiA]

There have been clawed hammers since at least 1514: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claw_hammer

Clearly, innovation is good - the modern (1514) hammer is better than the big stone our Homo Abilis ancestors used. But at some point, you reach an upper bound.

[mpyne]

It was a separate innovation, followed soon after by a different innovation to combine a claw tool and a hammer tool into a combined tool.

But there are other things you can put on the other end of a hammer besides a claw, none of which made the original hammer a bad idea if all your problems really are nails that you don't need to claw back out.