Why can't I write code inside my browser? • Hacker News Board

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

#381

Post by monetus » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 2:27 PM UTC

naavis wrote: post #339

aspaceman wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah like there's 20 years of programming language research that studies exactly what this person is talking about. Graphical programming languages, removing barriers to learning, etc. They've been chugging away for decades and visual programming, Blender, Blueprints, Scratch, etc are all we got out of it. Does the article writer just think research doesn't exist? That CS sprouted from existence fully formed as a web…

> Yeah like there's 20 years of programming language research that studies exactly what this person is talking about. More like 50 years. :)

Relevant alan kay video from 1968 https://youtu.be/QQhVQ1UG6aM

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

#382

Post by sidpatil » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 2:27 PM UTC

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…

"When someone says 'I want a programming language in which I need only say what I wish done,' give him a lollipop."

Epigram 93, Alan Perlis

http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/perlis-alan/quotes.html

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

#383

Post by user-the-name » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 2:28 PM UTC

growse wrote: post #364

user-the-name wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

I have not once said I do not like CLIs. I use them all the time.

But the fact remains, they are not useful when doing iOS programming, because the tooling provided does a BETTER job than the command line.

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

#384

Post by linux-user » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 2:30 PM UTC

The only reasonable use of GUIs is if you need one hand free for jerking off.

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

#385

Post by johannes1234321 » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 2:30 PM UTC

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…

Software development is hard and complex.

We, as software industry at large, however should work on two fronts:

- Try to make things, which can be simple simple. Many do that out of self interest, but sometimes one is so used to complexitiest, that one doesn't see them anymore and we often fear redoing grown things as "it works" and we might break use cases and we don't want to relearn things ...

- There is a large room for enabling non-programmers to build tools. In the past™ people built fancy tools on top of dbase, delphi, access, excel (world runs on excel ...) etc. without being programmers. There is an easy start allowing a domain expert to build a tool in their office faster than explaining the problem to the IT department. The solutions weren't nice from an Software Engineering view, but solved problems. This we have to enable with modern technologies instead of access conflicts to an excel file on a windows share ...

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

#386

Post by michaelt » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 2:34 PM UTC

kichimi wrote: post #126

user-the-name wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The command line" is not pointless. The current popular implementation of a command line, is, however, pointlessly complicated and esoteric for no real gain. It could be improved massively.

Which one? Please explain how it's pointless. What is esoteric about typing which program you want to run?

I love the command line and use it all the time.

But let's be honest, the design is pretty esoteric.

You want to find a file containing a particular string? For some reason the tool is called 'grep'. The name is followed by '-r' then the search term, then the directory to start the search in.

And it won't be long before you start encountering tools with such intuitive names as 'sed' and 'awk' and 'crontab'

The tool for finding a file by name is better - that's called 'find' - except compared to grep the arguments are swapped: The directory to search is now the first parameter, not the last.

Oh, to find the *.desktop files on your system you did a find on / ? Yes, the messages like "find: ‘/proc/19917/fd’: Permission denied" are normal, you should ignore them. It's easy, simply add 2>/dev/null to the command.

Before you know it, the command line infects your brain and you start saying things like "sudo and nohup are perfectly good names"

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

#387

Post by 0-_-0 » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 2:34 PM UTC

linux-user wrote: post #379

0-_-0 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely GUIs, which is much easier to use for beginners (we're talking about beginners here, not people who have been using command lines exclusively for the last 20 years)

That's like people expecting to be able to repair their TV with their remote control.

Some TVs just don't break

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

#388

Post by humanrebar » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 2:38 PM UTC

rualca wrote: post #348

0-_-0 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The command line is a layer of abstraction that could be made unnecessary for programming. You could program in Turbo Pascal without a command line in the 90s

> The command line is a layer of abstraction that could be made unnecessary for programming. Wow, if I ever saw a comment on HN that was fundamentally wrong on many levels, this was it. No, a command line interface is not "a layer of abstraction". A command line interface is an interface. That's it. Instead of pressing a button, you run a command. If you want to pass settings to an app when you launch it, you use the…

> Wow, if I ever saw a comment on HN that was fundamentally wrong on many levels, this was it.

You must not visit political threads much.

But seriously, you could have said that in a constructive way.

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

#389

Post by magicseth » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 2:39 PM UTC

I feel many of the comments here are akin to saying "laying out in documents latex is hard, if you can't figure it out you're not ready to write" while the author of the article is saying "I think writing documents could be easier." Google docs is proof it's possible.

Sure everyone could learn about $path with a little research but there is SO MUCH to learn to get started with a "simple" react app... It's not necessary.

Great tools hands a "low floor AND a high ceiling" meaning it's easy to get started and possible to go really really far.

Clearly tools like replies show there's a desire for easier to set up environments.

Have you never wished you could save your css tweaks directly from chrome dev tools?

Why should the browser show you the page source when you could just curl it? Well... Let's try to make the unimportant things EASY so we can focus on the useful parts.

Firefox could absolutely come with a standard node server and editor. And it could integrate with providers like GitHub or netlify.

Gatekeeping getting started benefits nobody.

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

#390

Post by robenkleene » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 2:39 PM UTC

twobitshifter wrote: post #309

robenkleene wrote: post #180

The reason you can't do this is that Node of course has a bunch of file system APIs that for security reasons necessitate an application designed for automatically downloading and executing arbitrary source code can never, ever, have access to. But you could rephrase the authors point this way: Browsers make a ton of concessions to regular users at the expense of developers. Consider for example that the act of devel…

Are you aware of Firefox Developer Edition? https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/developer/

No, I wasn’t, thanks for pointing it out! I’d love to hear which of the issues I listed that it addresses. The tag line “welcome to your new favorite browser. Get the latest features, fast performance, and the development tools you need to build for the open web”, as well as the features listed on the homepage, don’t address any of the points I listed directly. (This doesn’t mean the app itself doesn't, but I'm not encouraged by the features as they’re listed on the homepage, which feels more like some new features for developers, rather than a re-imagining of how we think about how developer tools are integrated into the browser like I’m describing.)