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Why can't I write code inside my browser?

tomcritchlow.com

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

#451

Post by Planktonne »

The author isn't wrong about the entry barrier into programming. However, they are wrong about almost everything else; 'Node in a browser', as the author uses it, is just a string of half-understood terms thrown together. Ironically, the inaccessibility of programming is probably at least partly to blame for their confusion.

There is undoubtedly work to be done into making programming more accessible to newcomers - almost all tutorials on code start in the wrong place, assuming a lot of knowledge of the difficult bits but then labouring through the easy ones.

I don't think the problem is tooling, but how we introduce and talk about those tools - you can quickly explain the command line in a way that takes the fear away and gives learners a framework for understanding it, but you have to give that explantion; too often it's skipped over.

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

#452

Post by dcchambers »

I think what the author is really pointing out is the rather large gap between the many introductory "learn to code" tools and then actual, real development tools used to make software.

A lot of those introductory tools abstract away the way that software actually works which allows you to focus on learning the basics of logic and programming. This is great for learning but extremely limiting. There is a reason why professional tools and programming languages don't abstract away the technical details. Because you need to know how things work under the hood in order to be a truly effective programmer.

This is part of why a formal programming education is so valuable IMO. It can be very hard to cross that gap on your own.

I think this article also defines a kind of smoke test for programmers. If you don't like learning how to read error messsage on a command line or googling stuff, you probably won't like programming.

To Tom I would say - programming is hard, but I think that's OK. It's not good to hide all of the technical "ugliness" of how these tools work because to be an effective programmer you need to know how they work. That's just the reality. The messages you see when working with tools like Ruby or Node are designed to be useful for a professional who knows how to read them. What may seem like command line garbage to an untrained eye is actually extremely useful to someone that knows what they are looking for...and that is what takes someone from a hobbyist programmer to a professional. Is there room for improvement? Can we close the gap between the myriad of "hello world" programming tools and the seemingly bottomless trench of "real" programming tools? Absolutely.

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

#453

Post by tonyedgecombe »

lawl wrote: post #236
edu wrote: post #221

The author is not talking about "professional programming" but about a field called "end-user programming" or more generally "end-user development", which is a whole academic field with the goal os allowing end-users to develop their own solutions. From this field came things like Scratch [1]. If you're interested a very important paper in that area (from the philosophical aspect) is "Meta-Design: A manifesto for End…

> The author is not talking about "professional programming" but about a field called "end-user programming" or more generally "end-user development" I do think VisualBasic(6) had a thing there. It was so easy to visually design a GUI and slap some code into it. That said, as a "professional programmer" I once had to maintain such a VB6 application that was developed by someone that wasn't a professional programmer a…

That's not a problem unique to VB6, there is a lot of crap code out there.

Also I've seen some strong programmers being very productive with tools like VB6 and Delphi.

I suspect the main reason for its demise is corporates don't like installing software on client machines. It's much easier for them to deliver everything through the browser.

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

#454

Post by robertlagrant »

slifin wrote: post #159
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…

I make no opinion on the author but something like this: https://twitter.com/ibdknox/status/1328797793138266113?s=20 Does make me think programming can be radically different and maybe a lot easier

This is like Spring Roo. Didn't really get off the ground.

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

#455

Post by BatteryMountain »

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…

Who/what kind of tech person doesn't know or complains about user/local/bin... this is like.. basics man..

I think the person is trolling.

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

#456

Post by robertlagrant »

jariel wrote: post #408
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…

No, this is wrong, it has nothing to do with laziness. The author is very right to point out the fact that the browser in 2020 is still so fundamentally broken. Theoretically, tons of work should be facilitated in the cloud without having to download or setup a single thing. You should be able to make fixes, test etc. in github without having to download the code and toolchain as easy as you would on your desktop.

You... can do this in Github.

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

#457

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

bccdee wrote: post #447
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 g…

I don't know much about Rust, because it doesn't seem to be the kind of language I want to use, so I can't personally speak to its complexity.

However, I do know that a lot of objections to it from the people I follow are around the borrow checker and both the friction and high[0] compile times it causes.

[0] to put that in context, Jon is frequently annoyed by the sub-second linking time incurred by LLVM because it is more than an order of magnitude longer than his largest program (~60k line game, IIRC) takes to compile.

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

#458

Post by jmull »

Yes, the author is confused and has no idea what he's talking about.

But I agree with the general idea: The barrier to entry for coding is quite high, which puts it out of reach for so many.

Flash is dead now, but it was an environment that really lowered the barrier. People with barely any coding skills could program with it. But a lot of them had other skills. The results were often awful or horrible, but some really amazing things were also created.

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

#459

Post by oytis »

richardwhiuk wrote: post #355
tommilukkarinen wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you put it this way, it makes perfect sense. My first computer C64 came with Basic pre-installed and that's how an eight year old learned to code. I guess the equivalent would be, that there would a button 'code' on the browser UI, and that would lead the user onwards.

Open the Developer Console. Get cracking.

Well, a developer console with "import" support and some GUI frontend to npm would be something the author wants. Sounds not that hard, right?

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

#460

Post by robertlagrant »

malux85 wrote: post #88

If the author has “been playing with the web and code for years” and is still “wtf” on /usr/local/bin in $PATH it shows a lack of discipline and structure in their learning. I see this in many in many of my apprentices - the desire for instant gratification and the lack of experience means they refuse to do anything that doesn’t immediately proceed them closer to their goal. Here’s the thing with programming - you ca…

While I'm not a low code fan, I would say please don't read Learn Python the Hard Way. https://sopython.com/wiki/LPTHW_Complaints
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