Desktop Metaphor

Before GUIs, every computer interface was a command-line interface (CLI). You typed memorised text-based commands into an input. This certainly kept the screen free of clutter but had several downsides. It was difficult to remember what commands were available. You couldn't see the current state of the system. Everything was hidden away b

Most software entangles the abstract functionality of the application with the interface that presents it to the user. For example, in Google Maps, users can search for a route between two points, but neither the resulting route nor the process of computing that route can be separated from the visual interface.

As a result, many compositional tasks

The desktop user interface is a mainstay of computing. Bread and butter, if you will. A pointer, icons, windows, menus and buttons, controlled using a keyboard and a mouse. Ingenious simplicity.

For almost half a century now, we haven't really managed to come up with something better, and that's not for lack of trying. This fact seems to annoy a lot

We can think of time and space as our desktop, and the various ‘objects’ in our world (e.g. bananas, buildings, bodies) as symbols or icons on that desktop.