Talk:Larry Tesler

The Book "Designing Interactions" by Dan Saffer (book link) has an interview with Larry Tesler, wherein the Law of conservation of complexity was discussed, and since then it became quite popular amongst the User Experience and the Interaction Design Professionals as a reference point.

The reference interview can be found at http://www.designingforinteraction.com/tesler.html Another prominent Usability practitioner, Bruce Tognazzini has mentioned about this law and Larry Tessler in his 1998 piece "The Complexity Paradox" ^[1]

So, the proposal is to add the following text to the Larry Tesler page, or a new page altogether.

Law of Conservation of Complexity

Between 1983-85, Larry Tesler was involved in developing the MacApp object-oriented framework at Apple. He advocated a three-layer code model. In addition to the Macintosh Toolbox--a shared software library--and the application itself, he made the case for an intermediate layer that implemented what he called a "generic application". A generic application was a real interactive program--with windows, menus, and commands--that did nothing at all, but did it in a standard way. You could create, open, save and print documents, but the documents lacked form and were empty of content. You built your actual application by modifying the generic application in an object-oriented way. To sell the idea to Apple management and independent software vendors, he came up with the "Law of Conservation of Complexity"

The law of Conservation of Complexity states that :

Every application must have an inherent amount of irreducible complexity. The only question is who will have to deal with it.

Ashish Tiwari (talk) 13:19, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Probably ought to remove the errant link 2020-02-19

Also Larry Tesler's other links from 2009 in this talk page are dead ends, no longer found 2020-02-19— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8806:2402:100:494d:13cc:3996:bcf4 (talk) 03:59, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

When I was updating this after news of his death, I was trying to confirm his (latest) wife's name. IEEE Spectrum clearly has it as Colleen, and you can find several non-news/non-reliable sources that clearly show that Larry Tesler and "Colleen Barton" attended several events together. (eg: a Stanford AI Lab reunion list), and you can go back to find Getty photos of the two of them at events in 1987ish (eg ) I just have not found any definitive proof of their marriage, everything is (from a WP:BLP standpoint) second-hand knowledge. I'm also surprised no obit yet has mentioned this either. In any case, I'm just leaving my research here in case someone hits on a firm source that confirms their marriage. IEEE Spectrum does mention a daughter too but that's from his first marriage right out of college. --Masem (t) 14:05, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

And NYTimes obit confirms. --Masem (t) 21:23, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

This article gives Larry Tesler's date of death as February 16 2020, but in the list of deaths for February 2020, it is given as February 17 2020. Vorbee (talk) 18:34, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Every original source - all US based - says he died Monday. Which is the 17th. I dn't know where people are getting 16th from. --Masem (t) 21:20, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Oh wait, the NYTimes (which is more authoritive) has said he died Sunday night. So the 16th would be right then. --Masem (t) 21:21, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

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In the last sentence of para 3, sub sec 1.3 Larry Tesler#Apple Computer, pls change

"By 1997, Tesler decided to leave Apple, and one of his last acts was to shutter the Advanced Technology Group as Apple was financially struggling, too much to support such a research program at that time."

to

"Tesler decided to leave Apple in 1997. One of his last acts was to close the Advanced Technology Group as Apple was struggling too much financially to support such a research program at that time."

Thx 121.44.38.245 (talk) 02:14, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

 Done - FlightTime (open channel) 02:25, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Thank you! 121.44.38.245 (talk) 04:46, 21 February 2020 (UTC)