He also groaned when Lotus Organizer came out. Abstract and mixed metaphors. Organizer combined the benefits of familiar presentation with a database's structure. As much as literary critics detest them, mixed metaphors are truly expressive. I believe that the revolution in accessible software will come from identifying, abstracting, and exploiting mixed metaphors.
Online suppliers mimic paper catalogs.
Spreadsheets emulate medieval Arabic double-entry bookkeeping. Yes, it's true. The strange thing is that the grid layout works incredibly well for many things. So we use grids from everything from multidimensional financial analyses to search engine results. I believe so, but the more complex and abstract the underlying information, the more difficult it is to come up with a viable model.