Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why can't I write code inside my browser?

tomcritchlow.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 624 posts

Re: Why can't I write code inside my browser?

#361

Post by kaoD »

swiftcoder wrote: post #218
jorams wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Requiring a novice to learn arcana of a 30 year old Unix system before they can learn to program is purely extraneous. The thing is, that's the system they are using. Node.js is a programming runtime for that system. Node.js has a GUI installer that sets everything up correctly, it's just not an IDE. Jetbrains has an IDE, WebStorm, that probably works just as well as the Java one. It can automatically download Node…

Sure, but when I visit nodejs.org there is a very prominent "Download" button, and no mention at all that I might have an easier time with WebStorm (or another such fully-integrated development package). No links to introductory materials either, I might add. Those would be fairly trivial changes to the website landing page, but they could drastically reduce the steepness of the on-ramp. By contrast, if I visit pytho…

Apples to oranges. Python is a language and Node is a runtime.

Compare with https://www.javascript.com/

Re: Why can't I write code inside my browser?

#362

Post by DanWritesCode »

This is one of the most whiny and misguided articles I've seen near the top of HN in some time.

I really fail to understand how people can see something like the $PATH variable and not understand it 'for years' - does everyone else not just Google/DDG things they don't understand?

It's not really worth critiquing more of the article, as the entire premise of not being able to 'write code inside the browser' is just another fallacy that's based on the authors complete lack of knowledge, or willingness to acquire any more knowledge.

Re: Why can't I write code inside my browser?

#363

Post by em500 »

The literal answer to the headline question is "You can, just open Developer Tools -> Console and code away." But it seems the question in the article is actually "Why can't I write node.js code inside my browser?", followed by what seems to me lots of confusion between coding and program execution environments (web-browser or MacOS).

You can code in JavaScript on most browsers without installing anything. Sure, the UI of browser Developer Tools can be somewhat intimidating for newcomers, but that could be fixed with some good tutorials. But it seems the author doesn't want to just write and run JavaScript, he wants to use node.js specifically. But the whole point of node.js is to take Chrome's JavaScript compiler/interpreter out of its native webbrowser environment and have it run in a Unix-like command line environment, such as Linux/MacOS. So complaining that you need to know some of the workings of a Unix-like command line environment to use node.js seems very misinformed.

As for accessibility of programming in general, the core developers are usually not that interested in that, but for most popular languages there are plenty of third party tutorials aimed at laymen. Most programming languages are specialized tools; they shouldn't try to be everything to everyone. We don't complain that university Calculus profs don't also write arithmetic books for elementary schools either.

Re: Why can't I write code inside my browser?

#364

Post by growse »

user-the-name wrote: post #329
d3ckard wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That solely depends on your use case. There are three reasons to use command line and none of them has anything to do with being easier: 1. It's faster. You can(and will after some time) remember hundreds of different commands. That means that to make computer do something, you just need to type. Typing is usually way faster than clicking in GUI, especially for non-trivial tasks, which require moving through several…

I am well aware. And I am saying that none of those are easier than the GUI tools provided in this case. Sure, in some cases, those are useful. But not always. And programming, in general, is not really a case where those things are useful on a minute-to-minute basis.

> I am well aware. And I am saying that none of those are easier than the GUI tools provided in this case.

In your opinion

Trying to project your personal preferences as objective reality is not helpful. You don't like CLIs, fine. You sound like you've got some good reasons to not like them. Your assumption that everyone else shares your values is a little weird.

Personally, I love the CLI and have yet to find many instances where the GUI is easier to use and more useful than the CLI alternative. Does this mean I think all GUIs are objectively bad? Of course not. It's personal preference.

Re: Why can't I write code inside my browser?

#366

Post by user-the-name »

artimaeis wrote: post #349
user-the-name wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not what it meant when it was created. Apparently some people have retroactively tried to change it mean that, but, that is just a complete nonsense phrase.

Right, as far as I understand it originally was just short for "user". It's where home directories of users were placed. Now that it's been relegated to storing user-usable programs & data it makes sense to me that it's separate from say /Users, but I suppose it could be aliased to something like /UserProgramsAndData for verboseness and clarity to newer users. But regardless, "User System Resources" is a fairly usefu…

If you designed this from scratch, is that the name you would naturally pick?

Re: Why can't I write code inside my browser?

#367

Post by chme »

user-the-name wrote: post #104
kichimi wrote: post #96

I try to keep my comments nice on HN but in this case I can't, I've met this kind of person many times now and I just can't hold back. The author is lazy, and is channeling his energy into complaining rather than learning. He believes he is by default an expert on the 'user friendliness' of programming. His comments don't really make much sense, and come across as whining that should be ignored. "People hate command…

The author is 100% correct on everything. Programming is massively over-complicated for no useful reason. Programmers tend to get very proud of the completely pointless knowledge they have to acquire to use the pointlessly complicated tools they do, and they confuse that with being clever. It's not. It's really not. Nothing has to be this esoteric and annoying. We've just chosen to keep things like this because we th…

> The author is 100% correct on everything. Programming is massively over-complicated for no useful reason.

I don't know of any developer that likes complexity for complexity sake for productive systems.

I know there are some esoteric programming languages or obfuscation techniques that make simple things more complex, but they a either meant as a challenge for fun or efforts to protect IP.

Do you have some examples where you have observed such design decisions?

Re: Why can't I write code inside my browser?

#368

Post by humanrebar »

macspoofing wrote: post #336
mrweasel wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it's a massive simplification of programming as a whole, I think you're at least partly right. Programming is in some cases over-complicated, for no reason. If you dig deeper however, you'll sometimes learn that the thing you considered overly complicated, was actually designed that way, not to annoy you, but because the same tool has to support use cases you didn't consider or don't understand. That's not to s…

>Programming is in some cases over-complicated, for no reason. Which part is over-complicated for no reason?

Everything happens for some reason if we want to be pedantic.

I think the point was that some things do not justify their complexity. Especially if you discount inertia.

Trivial example: the creat function could have been named create. That's one more thing folks just have to know and the reason for it isn't much better than "just because".

Re: Why can't I write code inside my browser?

#369

Post by lionkor »

ttt0 wrote: post #238
swiftcoder wrote: post #142

A lot of dunking of the "git gud" variety going on here, but the author has a solid point. Requiring a novice to learn arcana of a 30 year old Unix system before they can learn to program is purely extraneous. We could package programming languages up with GUI installers that set everything up correctly and let you get right to the code - and in fact, we used to. If you install IntelliJ, you'll have a fully-working J…

What arcana? Windows is not Unix and it uses PATH variable too. On most Linux distros you can simply run the equivalent to `sudo apt-get install nodejs` (or use a graphical front-end, if that's too hard for you) and everything will just work. Just as an aside, GUI installers are an absolute cancer. I don't mind if there is an option to do that, but I just wish I could make a simple script for installing all the neces…

On windows, you can automate the installs of software that comes as `msi` files, by the way - kind of obscure, but its how you can easily do that.

Re: Why can't I write code inside my browser?

#370

Post by majjgepolja »

kichimi wrote: post #96

I try to keep my comments nice on HN but in this case I can't, I've met this kind of person many times now and I just can't hold back. The author is lazy, and is channeling his energy into complaining rather than learning. He believes he is by default an expert on the 'user friendliness' of programming. His comments don't really make much sense, and come across as whining that should be ignored. "People hate command…

> you have to type everything

LoL they dont know tab completion exist.

Discoverability & Learning curve is a point in favor of GUIs. But having to press more keys (offset by not having to use mouse & fight with shitty new designs) is not.

Post reply on HN