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

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

#441

Post by arkadiytehgraet » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 3:34 PM UTC

user-the-name wrote: post #191

kichimi wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree completely, and I'm starting to see now that you do not see the command line as programming, which is a fundamental flaw in how you're approaching your argument. The command line _IS_ a programming language. If you do not want to learn it then you do not want to learn programming.

The command line is 100% superfluous. You can create and distribute a world-class iOS app without having to touch a command line even once. It is just not necessary. Nothing gets easier if you do. Because iOS has actual well-designed modern tooling.

iOS has one of the most pathetic development toolings in existence.

Your statement truly shows how unaware you are of actually good toolings and solutions for software development, and, frankly, you should not say a single word more about software development experience, if only not to embarrass yourself even further.

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

#442

Post by alickz » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 3:36 PM UTC

monetus wrote: post #381

naavis wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

That is extremely impressive.

I'm not sure I want to code like that, but damn is it impressive.

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

#443

Post by marcus_holmes » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 3:39 PM UTC

lionkor wrote: post #224

izacus wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programming COULD use a lot of simplification and removal of barriers. But still, just like you, I really hate the base attitude here. And for a different reason: I find that programmers who think like this, are also lazy when it comes to respecting the user. They're lazy when it comes to supporting accessibility. They're lazy when it somes to properly supporting i18n and making experience great for non-Americans. Th…

> Programming COULD use a lot of simplification I disagree, actually. There are plenty of languages, and even visual programming (via flow-diagrams, like Unreal Engine's "Blueprint" and Blender's shader flow diagrams), for those who just want to play around. For people who want to write a quick and dirty script, languages like python make it very easy already (relative to what they actually do). > Programming COULD u…

And yet... when Flash provided a simple, easy, way for people to get into coding using a GUI, there was an explosion of creativity.

Flash was terrible for all sorts of other reasons. But it did demonstrate that there is a class of incredibly creative people out there who can create amazing things, but not on the command line, and not using the tools currently available.

How do we get them doing that again?

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

#444

Post by dininski » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 3:39 PM UTC

em500 wrote: post #363

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…

Also don't forget projects like Cloud9. It is literally a cloud-based IDE similar to what the author was talking about. I do agree with someone else's comment that this is lazy writing - even a little bit of research/google-fu would immediately point you to similar projects.

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

#445

Post by user-the-name » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 3:40 PM UTC

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #404

selfhoster11 wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I addressed these points in one of my comments a while ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25305575 I admit that I'm kind of conflating the concept of a terminal emulator, a shell and a shell language, but the shell model has plenty to improve upon.

> Terminals of 2020 and beyond need to have first-class support for audio, video, images, and peripheral interactivity/customization. This shouldn't be supported in a first-class way, it should be supported as an extension where applicable, in keeping with Unix principles. We already have this with X11. > It should be possible to `cat` an image, or a video, or even previews of Word and Photoshop documents Again this…

"We have X11 for this" just means "we can't do this, use a different environment".

The point is, we should not HAVE to use a different environment. Images and media should be first-class citizens in a CLI just as much as they are in a GUI. There is nothing about a CLI that says it has to only handle text.

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

#446

Post by api » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 3:40 PM UTC

arkadiytehgraet wrote: post #441

user-the-name wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The command line is 100% superfluous. You can create and distribute a world-class iOS app without having to touch a command line even once. It is just not necessary. Nothing gets easier if you do. Because iOS has actual well-designed modern tooling.

iOS has one of the most pathetic development toolings in existence. Your statement truly shows how unaware you are of actually good toolings and solutions for software development, and, frankly, you should not say a single word more about software development experience, if only not to embarrass yourself even further.

Android Studio is hideously bad as well. Mobile really has an awful developer experience.

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

#447

Post by bccdee » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 3:41 PM UTC

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #437

lionkor wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Programming COULD use a lot of simplification I disagree, actually. There are plenty of languages, and even visual programming (via flow-diagrams, like Unreal Engine's "Blueprint" and Blender's shader flow diagrams), for those who just want to play around. For people who want to write a quick and dirty script, languages like python make it very easy already (relative to what they actually do). > Programming COULD u…

> There are languages and domains where the "elitism" is fully justified. If someone decides they want to write a high performance, easy to use, cross platform native application and complain about C++ or Rust being too complicated, then they should find an easier job. I disagree. I follow a lot of game developers and you'd be hard pressed to say they don't do high-performance corss-platform native application develo…

I'd argue that Rust is meaningfully simpler than C++. Mind you, it's also a fairly feature-rich language, but the complexity of C++ comes from decades of new features building up trying to supersede older features. C++ is several different languages by now depending on which feature set you use, but Rust is still just one language.

C++'s complexity is also a product of design choices like using templates to do both generics and metaprogramming, which in hindsight probably made things much harder than they needed to be. Rust has the benefit of being able to avoid decades of C++'s missteps.

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

#448

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 3:43 PM UTC

mypalmike wrote: post #331

malux85 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been programming for 25 years now, about 20 of which as a developer at billion dollar companies, google, facebook and various high scale hedge funds, including systems that serve billions of users a day. I have had a hobby in embedded programming and FPGA programming, compiler design and distributed deep learning. All of which used /usr/local/bin and $PATH. Every system, regardless of programming language across…

So I think what's happening is that there are people here who have maybe been programming longer than you have. And we remember when professional programs might be written in BASIC and sold on 5.25 inch floppies. On machines with no /usr/local or PATH. And then we programmed PCs using Borland or Symantec or whatever IDE and there was no /usr/local or (usually) PATH to be concerned about. And we programmed MacOS befor…

[deleted]

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

#449

Post by gdubs » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 3:46 PM UTC

This is the magic that HyperCard provided, and I’ve yet to see anything approach it. Regular people made stuff in HyperCard.

Side point: if you’re here because you’re interested in building solutions for people at scale, then maybe don’t tell users they’re stupid or lazy.

Building something for a mass audience means really understanding their problem, not just throwing solutions at them.

Sure, there’s a developer console. You can enable it, open it up, and then have a blank canvas. Then what? That’s not accessible to 99% of people out there.

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

#450

Post by user-the-name » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 3:46 PM UTC

flippinburgers wrote: post #432

user-the-name wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If the naming of the path is where you are hanging the crux of your argument about how "bad" things are, then you are not making a terribly convincing argument.

It is not. It is just one example out of a million of how things are weird and non-obvious for pointless reasons.