YakShaving

I was reading this post about the history of software version control and was amazed by the types of innovations that we have seen in the past several years.

In order to understand the article, you’ll first need to understand version control — It’s the way that individual and groups of developers maintain versions of software and code that they’re writing.

Here’s my favorite part of Francis’ commentary:

Have a quick look back up at those decades of progress. Yes, some of the advances were also enabled by increasing computer power. But mainly, they were simply made by people thinking of cleverer ways of collaborating.

I was intrigued that the ones that have happened in the last decade or so have been ones that are oriented around collaboration with other people. In the last 7 years, we’ve learned how social networking can help connect us to other people.

It’s clear to me that social networking is a precursor to connecting with other people for a more specific intent or purpose. This is very different from the timid, klugey, and “forced” ways we connect with each other today. I think we’ll look back at the “Like” on facebook and “Share” on twitter and wonder how we ever survived with them exclusively. The same user interface (UI) patterns and metaphors that we use on these networks (like activity feeds) will eventually fade into the background and pave the way for more collaborative, action oriented networks with new user interfaces.

Also blogged at BetterAt.

Respond to me on Twitter: @AshBhoopathy or follow the discussion on HN.