It looks nice. But while making desktop work look like a science fiction movie means making work fun, but not necessarily useful in accomplishing a task more effectively, sometimes it means the opposite.
I think Terminology augmented with non-distracting custom animated background, soundscapes (generated with nodal or noatikl), leds or ambient lightning designed to enhance specific autodetected tasks based on issue type (bug fixing, adding feature, writing documentation, writing e-mails etc) similar to mindmachines with either a touch or a gesture oriented interface within an AR or VR context including tactile and haptic feedback.
Typing can be done with a chording interface on a ergonomic keyboard layout, either braille, stenoknight or regular dvorak (with the letter I and U switched) - or mapped to a 10 or 25 switch operated by gestures, brainwaves (openeeg, neurosky or emotiv devices) or gloves.
http://www.wired.com/2015/01/ibrailler-ipad-app/
The output would be multi-modal, text to speeching the output on demand with specific key or voice bindings and default using a narrow Braille font so the display could be simultanously felt and seen (with contrast) or for example OLED coated braille pins. In this way also blind people can use the setup. For a general idea: http://www.tactisplay.com/product/tactisplay-table
Well, it _is_ the same thing as in the post you linked. The user is /u/nnkd and the development log is located at nnkd.org ... One might jump to conclusions here :)
"trying to escape the traditional window focused desktop environment with this project"
I lol'd!
(Because somehow I still tend to much more associate words like "newfangled" with "window focused desktop environments", rather than the word "traditional". I know it's been a long time. The brain is a strange thing.)
The output would be multi-modal, text to speeching the output on demand with specific key or voice bindings and default using a narrow Braille font so the display could be simultanously felt and seen (with contrast) or for example OLED coated braille pins. In this way also blind people can use the setup. For a general idea: http://www.tactisplay.com/product/tactisplay-table