You're mistaking this particular example with the general idea. What he means is that computers can do so much more than displaying text based content. And he not only wants you te be able to interact with information, he wants you to be able to create that kind of interactivity without becoming a real programmer first. To give a different example than the one about Logo; imagine a Wikipedia page about a well known mathematical principle, you can explain it with text and some images, but you could have explained it just as well on paper. Instead you could explain things in ways that only a computer enables you to do, for example like this: http://worrydream.com/#!/KillMath But that still scratches the surface compared to the stuff that Alan Kay wants to be the norm. I advice you read Alan Kay's work with that in mind: http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2011004_steps11.pdf
Sure, it would be amazing if the knowledge on Wikipedia could be presented to me in a more interactive and enlightening way. But there are a lot of hurdles between here and there. Interactions take a lot of talent, skill, and work to design -- will Wikipedia contributors have this skill? The possibilities are much more open-ended than a simple encyclopedia article, will Wikipedia contributors be able to collaboratively design and refine such a thing as easily as they write and revise a simple article? The code that implements those interactions needs to be sandboxed -- how do you prevent a random Wikipedia contributor from modifying the interaction's code to steal the viewer's Wikipedia credentials?
I'm all for Alan trying to make his vision a reality with the STEPS project, and I truly am interested to see if he demonstrates a new way of thinking about computing. But when it comes to ideas, the proof is in the pudding: the web is enormously successful, Wikipedia is enormously successful, so his criticism of them rings hollow.
The problem is that right now it is simply to hard to create this kind of interactivity. But in my opinion it does not necessarily have to be more complex than creating or maintaining a corporate spreadsheet.
will Wikipedia contributors be able to collaboratively design and refine such a thing as easily as they write and revise a simple article?
Absolutely.
how do you prevent a random Wikipedia contributor from modifying the interaction's code to steal the viewer's Wikipedia credentials?
The same ways as you would for text or image based content.
and I truly am interested to see if he demonstrates a new way of thinking about computing
Even when he is unable to demonstrate a new way of thinking about computing, I am sure we all can agree that a lot of things can still be improved. It would be a shame if the best we can do on computers is presenting information like we do on paper.
