alt Hacker NewsI mean, this very discussion is a case study in the supremacy of text. I skimmed the OP's blog post in thirty seconds and absorbed his key ideas. Your link is to a 54 minute video on an interesting topic which I unfortunately don't have time to watch. While I have no doubt that there are interesting ideas in it, video's inferior to text for communicating ideas efficiently, so most people reading this thread will never learn those ideas.
Text is certainly not the best at all things and I especially get the idea that in pedagogy you might want other things in a feedback loop. The strength of text however is its versatility, especially in an age where text transformers are going through a renaissance. I think 90%+ of the time you want to default to text, use text as your source of truth, and then other mediums can be brought into play (perhaps as things you transform your text into) as the circumstances warrant.
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I came back here after the video (btw he speak very deliberately, watching it at 1.5 or 2x while digesting the message is fine)
I'd compare it's message to a "warning !" sign. It's there to make you stop and think about our computing space, after that it's up to you to act or not on how you perceive it.
That's totally wishy-washy, so it might not resonate, but after that I went to check more of what dynamicland is doing and sure enough they're doing things that are completely outside of the usual paradigm.
A more recent video explaining the concept in a more practical and down to earth framing: https://youtu.be/PixPSNRDNMU
(here again, reading the transcript won't nearly convey the point. Highly recommend watching it, even sped up if needed)
The fidelity and encoding strength of the "idea" you got the gist of from skimming might be less than the "idea" you receive when you spend the time to watch the 54 minute video
Actually, you might want to check the video again, it has sections and a full transcript on the right side, precisely to make skimming easy!
> video's inferior to text for communicating ideas efficiently
Depends on the topic tbh. For example, YouTube has had an absolute explosion of car repair videos, precisely because video format works so well for visual operations. But yes, text is currently the best way to skim/revisit material. That's one reason I find Bret's website so intriguing, since he tries to introduce those navigation affordances into a video medium.
> The strength of text however is its versatility, especially in an age where text transformers are going through a renaissance. I think 90%+ of the time you want to default to text, use text as your source of truth, and then other mediums can be brought into play (perhaps as things you transform your text into) as the circumstances warrant.
Agree, though not because of text's intrinsic ability, but because its ecosystem stretches thousands of years. It's certainly the most pragmatic choice of 2025. But, I want to see just how far other mediums can go, and I think there's a lot of untapped potential!