00100	QUESTIONS OF COMPUTER SCIENCE
00200	
00300	
00400		The   main   questions  of  computer  science  that  we  have
00500	identified so far are:
00600	
00700		1. How to make programs that interact with people, files, and
00800	computers  portable.  The key to this seems to lie in identifying the
00900	semantics of the interactions  and  separating  it  from  syntax  and
01000	hardware.
01100	
01200		2.  A  second problem is to develop a language for expressing
01300	the  kinds  of  things  computer  programs  belonging  to   different
01400	institutions  or  individuals might say to each other.  These include
01500	price and other inquiries, purchase orders, etc.  This  problem  goes
01600	beyond the home terminal application.
01700	
01800		3.  A  uniform  system for making the facilities of a program
01900	available to an inexperienced user - distinguishing  a  user  who  is
02000	inexperienced  with  the  particular  program  from  the  user who is
02100	inexperienced with interactive programs altogether.  The latter needs
02200	some  tutoring,  but the former can probably do a lot without reading
02300	or  formal  instruction   if   things   work   in   a   uniform   and
02400	self-documenting  way.  This  is  especially  important  in  the home
02500	terminal context, because we envisage that when  home  terminals  are
02600	well  developed,  there  will  be  literally  thousands  of  services
02700	available, and the utility of any particular service will  depend  on
02800	how easy it is to start using it.
02900	
03000		4.  One  idea  we  shall  explore is that of non-hierarchical
03100	control systems which allow a user to get  at  any  facility  of  the
03200	system  whatever  he  has just been doing without losing the state of
03300	his current activity.
03400	
03500		5. We shall work on the  problems  of  security  and  privacy
03600	presented  by  home  terminals  to  assure  both  the  privacy of the
03700	individual and the security of the systems that he uses.
03800	
03900		6. Home terminals raise  a  number  of  problems  in  display
04000	generation and maintenance.  Present systems are far from ideal.
04100	
04200		7.  The  widespread  sharing  of  interactive  programs  will
04300	probably require a number of software  and  hardware  standards.   We
04400	propose  to  study  the  requirements  for a standard general purpose
04500	terminal (only  those  features  required  to  make   services   work
04600	everywhere  would  be  standardized),  a standardizable set of display
04700	commands, a standardizable set of operations  for  human  interaction
04800	and  interaction  with  files,  a  file description system that would
04900	permit any file on a  mass  storage  device  in  the  country  to  be
05000	described   so   that   data   could   be   obtained   from  it  over
05100	telecommunication networks, and standards for documents in  arbitrary
05200	character sets and with pictures.
05300	
05400		The  object  of these standardizability efforts is not to get
05500	the standards accepted, although this might happen if we design  them
05600	well  enough.   All  we really propose to do is to study the problems
05700	from a non-parochial point of view and make proposals that could be a
05800	basis for discussion of standards.