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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?

#481

Post by dokem »

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 seems to be confusing building software with using software. We can build higher level software that allows people to do more (excel), but someone still has to know how all that works (and even what /usr/local/bin and $PATH is) and be able to work at the lower layers. That is what a software engineer is. Do we need to marginalize and inclusive-ise everything to death?

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

#482

Post by dboreham »

yesenadam wrote: post #426
sidpatil wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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

> a programming language in which I need only say what I wish done I like Prolog because it is that language. Other languages you have to write a program telling the machine what to do every step of the way. (Except if the program uses neural nets.)

Lollipop on its way...

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

#483

Post by ubermonkey »

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…

Oh my god you're so right. I read your comment first, and though "man, there's no way that article is that bad!"

It is, though. It really is.

He's some kind of self-anointed "thought leader" and "consultant". Because, honestly, of course he is.

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

#484

Post by sergeykish »

He is using server side programming environment. Linux won the servers. How hard task is there?

    $ pacman -S nodejs python-pip ruby
also

    $ pacman -S ghc lua erlang elixir rust gcc clang postgresql docker podman
---

But seriously. There is no market. Browser is a javascript runtime, it is easy to make self-contained HTML like self-contained SWF before.

Nodejs is v8 running on the server. In theory it should be possible to emulate in the browser. In practice someone has to implement that first.

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

#485

Post by nebulous1 »

GuB-42 wrote: post #187
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 think the author is not talking about career programming. If that's your job, you have no excuses not learning command lines and all the other stuff. This, I think, is more intended for people who are not really programmers, but would like to write a bit of logic, and find themselves with tools intended for professionals. Because I am an experienced programmer now, I may be biased but I have a feeling we raised the…

> I think the author is not talking about career programming.

Yes, and I'll be honest and say that I missed that to begin with. The author is also not a developer, which is why he is mistaken on a number of specifics. I think concentrating on those specifics miss the point of what he's trying to relate.

I think the barrier to start coding is incredibly low at the moment though. There are so many learning resources and even websites that provide a full stack including a web based ide. The barrier to doing it completely on your own hardware may be slightly higher than it used to be because everything requires so much customizability that it ends up being difficult to operate. Of course there are simpler option out there but they don't get as much press as the more capable tools.

I don't think he solved the crux of his excel problem though: excel provides an easy way of coding, providing the input for the code, and presenting the results in productive manner. Most environments make this fairly painful for the beginner, requiring you to parse text files or similar. This allows beginner excel users to be productive quickly. Of course, baking node into the browser isn't going to solve that.

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

#486

Post by [deleted] »

II2II wrote: post #373
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 lazy, and is channeling his energy into complaining rather than learning. I don't know about that. The author is certainly confusing programming with setting up a development environment. I can understand why they would be frustrated with the latter, since it takes away with what they are trying to do. When I started out, the latter was fairly simplistic: computers booted into BASIC. If you needed som…

[deleted]

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

#487

Post by bambax »

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…

He's not just lazy, he lacks some basic understanding:

> Here’s my pitch: build a browser that comes pre-installed with node.js

Okay, you don't have to know anything about JS or V8 or Node to live a normal life; most people don't and they're fine. But if you're going to complain that you can't "code in the browser" you should try to understand what you're talking about a little more.

This sounds like an elaborate prank.

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

#488

Post by [deleted] »

bregma wrote: post #245
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…

> Stop trying to assemble a fully functional car with no understanding of the fundamentals and then getting frustrated that car assembly is difficult. Most of these people find driving hard. You have to put the liquid in the hole and turn the key and keep pressing the floor-thing and hold the circle thing all while looking out the window to make sure no one gets in your way and the car stays on the hard paths. What t…

[deleted]

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

#489

Post by sidlls »

chme wrote: post #340
austincheney wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Programming COULD use a lot of simplification I so completely disagree. Writing JavaScript is already so simple that almost nobody knows how to do it any more. You can download a colossal framework and a billion NPM packages to write some completely unoriginal CRUD application and bitch about how hard life is. Fearing writing original code is the name of the game.

> I so completely disagree. Writing JavaScript is already so simple that almost nobody knows how to do it any more. You can download a colossal framework and a billion NPM packages to write some completely unoriginal CRUD application and bitch about how hard life is. Fearing writing original code is the name of the game. The reason for this seems more that there a many coders that forget about the task of vetting the…

I don’t think it’s because they forgot to vet their dependencies. I think it’s because there’s a culture of “just get it done” that fosters short cuts, and it’s coupled closely with a culture of worship around open source as if it should be implicitly trusted.

The result has been a massive proliferation of perpetually-junior engineers writing code and rising in ranks to run things.

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

#490

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

user-the-name wrote: post #291
malux85 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was travelling through Italy, I learnt a phrase from programmers there, "If my mother had wheels, she would have been a bike" - and it's a criticism of hypothetical situations like your answer above. Saying "This is arbitrary if we made a different choice things would be different" is a total meaningless statement because you just move the bar and then say if the bar is moved things are different. My argument…

What I am saying is, as soon as someone new to programming points out, entirely correctly, that the tools we use are weird, obscure and difficult to use for no apparent reason, programmers will scream in rage that no, they are not, and by the way, you are stupid for saying it, you clearly have no idea what you are doing and you will never be a programmer. As is happening everywhere in this very thread. I am saying th…

> What I am saying is, as soon as someone new to programming points out, entirely correctly, that the tools we use are weird, obscure and difficult to use for no apparent reason, programmers will scream in rage that no, they are not, and by the way, you are stupid for saying it, you clearly have no idea what you are doing and you will never be a programmer.

If you are a beginner in some topic (any topic), and encounter a group of people who are proficient in that thing, and you disagree with them about some aspect of it, the options are broadly that 1. you've hit some great insight, or 2. you don't understand, but the odds favor option 2. If, however, you're confident that you've hit onto something better than everyone else, let me echo others and suggest that you should try to implement it; either you will succeed and show the industry the error of their ways, or you'll find out why things are the way they are, and both of those are good outcomes.

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