What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it • Hacker News Board

Re: What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

#111

Post by inimino » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 5:54 PM UTC

orclev wrote: post #109

inimino wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you really want programming to continue to be difficult.

On the contrary, I want programming to be easier where possible, but the goals of this manifesto (and all the similar ones before it) are trying to fix the wrong thing. Better and more powerful abstractions are always good, I'll always welcome a new tool that makes my job easier. However the goal of this project is to make a tool that's explicitly designed to make code that's easier to read for the average person, no…

I can't tell from the manifesto what this supposed to do, but the goal of making programming more accessible seems worthwhile.

An Internet-enabled open source Excel would be, well, at least better than Excel, which runs more of the world than we'd probably like to admit. Of course, the chances of that happening are effectively zero.

It looks more like Smalltalk, which actually isn't known for being easy to read. So I'll reserve judgment for now, but I support the ambitious effort.

Re: What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

#112

Post by inimino » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 6:00 PM UTC

rtens wrote: post #110

BuuQu9hu wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure! Most real numbers are uncomputable, for starters. "approximations are usually good enough" is a smoke screen that assumes that it's always possible to make approximations and iteratively improve their accuracy, something which generally is only true for computable numbers! Another example, something I've been studying recently, is the phenomenon of patterns. Patterns are very abstract, and it's not at all clear…

I must admit that I have only very limited understanding of numeric and cryptography. But I do find these very interesting discussion points. The uncomputable real numbers are the irrational ones, no? But those you can compute to an arbitrary precision. It's just for most applications, you don't need much precision. But again, I've not done very much simulation so I might miss something. Patterns are something I have…

Simplify your message. What is the core, key idea of what you want to do? If you can't explain it in a sentence, keep trying.

Re: What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

#113

Post by rtens » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 6:08 PM UTC

inimino wrote: post #107

rtens wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- that's exactly what it is. And the way I see it, actors are an implementation of OOP (in it's original meaning) so I would stick with "everything in an object" - thanks =) - I had that same feeling while writing it, constantly balancing my own ignorance with an acceptable level of vagueness - call me the over-the-top guy. But the way I see, your vision has to be grand, if not megalomaniac if you want the essence to…

If the thesis is relevant at all to what you're doing now, might I suggest linking to it directly from the manifesto? Otherwise it sounds mostly like you are very excited about something, but I got almost no idea what that something is.

That's probably the biggest weakpoint of the manifesto but also kinda on purpose. While the thesis was all about "let's build something" the manifesto is a fresh start trying to answer the question "what is the problem?". The thesis is still relevant but a bit outdated and I'll probably rewrite it in multiple blog articles.

What I'm planning to use as information starting point is zells.org but it's all still in an early stage. At the moment I'm working on creating a document that visualizes the "end product" that I have in mind.

Re: What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

#114

Post by cr0sh » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 6:12 PM UTC

rtens wrote: post #76

skywhopper wrote: post #46

Anyone who says this: in the virtual world of computers, everything can be replicated, from complex physical phenomena to abstract ideas, and even your own mind. Does not understand computers well enough to be lecturing the world about the need for software "literacy". The assertion that computers can represent any of those things is a complete falsehood. Computers are great with complex mathematical models of physic…

I remember a draft of the manifesto that had indeed way more classifiers in it. I guess removing almost all of them for better readability was maybe not the best idea. DecoPerson and noxToken are right about this being a general statement about computing and not present day technology. Whether or not the human brain can be completely simulated by a machine is still an unanswered question but nothing I came across so…

> Whether or not the human brain can be completely simulated by a machine is still an unanswered question but nothing I came across so far convinced me that it's not possible.

If you haven't read this book:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach

...you probably should.

It may or may not change your mind, but it will bring up some interesting concepts and other meanderings that will keep you thinking about things.

Let me put it this way: Before I read it, your words above echoed my ideas. Interestingly, they still do. That said, after I read the book, there are certain nagging issues deep in the recesses of mathematics where few have dared to delve that raise interesting questions...

Re: What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

#115

Post by cr0sh » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 6:14 PM UTC

trolor wrote: post #50

skywhopper wrote: post #46

Anyone who says this: in the virtual world of computers, everything can be replicated, from complex physical phenomena to abstract ideas, and even your own mind. Does not understand computers well enough to be lecturing the world about the need for software "literacy". The assertion that computers can represent any of those things is a complete falsehood. Computers are great with complex mathematical models of physic…

>One of the first things you learn in Computer Science is that not all problems can be solved with a computer. Oh ... could you elaborate? I think my cut-rate, community college degree skipped that part :) it seems like a useful thing to know!

Here's a big one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_th...

Re: What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

#116

Post by inimino » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 6:19 PM UTC

rtens wrote: post #113

inimino wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the thesis is relevant at all to what you're doing now, might I suggest linking to it directly from the manifesto? Otherwise it sounds mostly like you are very excited about something, but I got almost no idea what that something is.

That's probably the biggest weakpoint of the manifesto but also kinda on purpose. While the thesis was all about "let's build something" the manifesto is a fresh start trying to answer the question "what is the problem?". The thesis is still relevant but a bit outdated and I'll probably rewrite it in multiple blog articles. What I'm planning to use as information starting point is zells.org but it's all still in an e…

After looking at the thesis and the manifesto, I think your best bet is to create one worked example, in pseudo-code or whatever, and then see if you can get anyone on board with that.

Re: What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

#117

Post by orclev » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 6:23 PM UTC

inimino wrote: post #111

orclev wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, I want programming to be easier where possible, but the goals of this manifesto (and all the similar ones before it) are trying to fix the wrong thing. Better and more powerful abstractions are always good, I'll always welcome a new tool that makes my job easier. However the goal of this project is to make a tool that's explicitly designed to make code that's easier to read for the average person, no…

I can't tell from the manifesto what this supposed to do, but the goal of making programming more accessible seems worthwhile. An Internet-enabled open source Excel would be, well, at least better than Excel, which runs more of the world than we'd probably like to admit. Of course, the chances of that happening are effectively zero. It looks more like Smalltalk, which actually isn't known for being easy to read. So I…

> It looks more like Smalltalk, which actually isn't known for being easy to read.

That's sort of one of my points though. They're going to come up with basically one of two things:

A) Something that's conceptually simple (so the average person can understand it without needing to take a bunch of programming classes) but which leads to most programs being very hard to read because they have to implement all the complexity in the program.

or

B) Something that's conceptually complex (and which will require a bunch of programming classes to understand) but allows for simple and easy to understand programs (once you understand the language).

All the horrible Excel and Access code out there (not to mention some of the worst Javascript out there) are basically the first category, while most serious programs and programming languages are the second category, or somewhere in-between the two.

Smalltalk is somewhere between the two. It uses a number of relatively complex concepts but tries to hide them behind some fancy tooling. It was a hugely influential language and pioneered a number of interesting, although perhaps ultimately misguided, concepts and abstractions. Personally I think the message passing concept Smalltalk pioneered (the predecessor to todays actor model and one of the originators of the OO concept) is going to go down as an evolutionary dead end that's poorly suited as a model for general purpose programming (it has certain niche uses that it's very well suited for but shouldn't be applied to the general case).

Re: What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

#118

Post by rtens » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 6:27 PM UTC

inimino wrote: post #112

rtens wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must admit that I have only very limited understanding of numeric and cryptography. But I do find these very interesting discussion points. The uncomputable real numbers are the irrational ones, no? But those you can compute to an arbitrary precision. It's just for most applications, you don't need much precision. But again, I've not done very much simulation so I might miss something. Patterns are something I have…

Simplify your message. What is the core, key idea of what you want to do? If you can't explain it in a sentence, keep trying.

I want to "increase the number of people who are able to write, modify, combine and share software by building a tool that makes writing software easy and fun, and accessible to everyone." I even have a slogan. I call it "Enabling Software Literacy"

That said, I'm highly skeptical towards the "good ideas can be stated in a sentence" heuristic.

Re: What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

#119

Post by barnacs » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 6:31 PM UTC

I haven't read the paper yet but the idea looks promising.

I've had this itch myself for a long time. I can't quite put my finger on it but we really need something like a high level assembly language. One that incorporates high level concepts like networked computers, cryptographic identites for users, access to a global, shared pool of data and algorithmic primitives regardless of which application they were originally written for, or what domain specific higher level language they were created in.

Like, once a user has entered their address into a computer, they shouldn't ever have to enter it again in a different software. Once someone has written an algorithm which takes input x and produces output y, noone should ever have to rewrite it again, but everyone should be able to reuse it. Applications shouldn't all indvividually handle transferring data between devices of the same user or even between users, this should be already built into our programming model. And so on.

If this sounds like some utopian dream or incoherent babble, that's because it probably is at this point. But I'm convinced this is the future of computing we should be aiming for, not piling up more stuff onto our existing stack that's just barely held together by ~50 year old technolgies built for that age.

Re: What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

#120

Post by cr0sh » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 6:39 PM UTC

orclev wrote: post #66

Can we please just let this idea die. Almost since the day programming was invented there has been at least one person out there trying to dumb it down to work for the average person and it always fails. Computers are hard to program because they're complicated . Programming languages strike a balance between simplifying some aspects of that complexity and exposing enough of the inner workings to efficiently implemen…

> Almost since the day programming was invented there has been at least one person out there trying to dumb it down to work for the average person and it always fails.

In a manner, one person succeeded - and he did it without "dumbing it down" - but rather by understanding and utilizing what was then known about how we learn things - particularly as children:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindstorms_(book)

Sadly, it seems that Papert's work is mostly forgotten by those who seek to re-implement it - and generally poorly in most instances, with few exceptions.

One of course being MIT's Scratch:

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/117504922/

Though I still think Papert's language to be superior, as it is like LISP, is functional, and is a real language you type in an editor (vs "drag-n-drop" programming). In other words, it approaches programming closer to how programmers code.