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The End of Coding

alexn.id.au

21–30 of 106 posts

Re: The End of Coding

#22

> If you’re a programmer and this offends you, consider how much more value you could create if you didn’t spend half your time as a glorified PSD->HTML translator. As the author states, the idea of abstracting away the complexity of creating user interfaces isn't new, but I think it's wrong to think we could one day create tools that lets you do that without having to write code and still keep all the flexibility of…

I was just about to write something like this. Just because you've got a pretty GUI that grandma could use to assemble a sophisticated "app" doesn't mean you have to take away the low-level functionality.

What's wrong with "right-click -> open component in editor"?

I'd also like to add that a lot of people think "coding" means "typing" and their idea of the ultimate abstraction involves a lot of drag & drop. That would be just fine for starting the development of an app but would get really annoying really fast as you start to add more features and functionality.

At the very least give us the option to perform every single task with the keyboard in an efficient manner.

Re: The End of Coding

#23
I said a similar sort of thing to someone just last week. He thought I was nuts. Time will tell.

The end of the world is nigh. etc.

Re: The End of Coding

#25

I can remember seeing adverts for "The Last One" in the early 1980s while I was still at school - this was a menu based BASIC application builder: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_One_%28software%29

Interesting before I saw you post I made a similar comment I saw this around the time I started work!!

Re: The End of Coding

#27
post #5
post #2

Call me skeptical. Virtually everyone who has spent more than a few years programming can attest that it has, at the very least, opened a new dimension of logical thinking and problem-solving that is not easily found in other fields. I think the challenge of creating an interface to this kind of thinking that is friendly to non-coders is difficult enough...but the idea that once these tools are made, they'll grok wha…

There are many ways to mitigate these issues. The one I like to believe will be the most used would be a entire new way of using computers. Just like Google uses complex algorithms in order to try to give you better search results, I see no reason why Excel can't try to "learn" your usage. I'm quite saddened that it's 2013 and few applications try to learn more about the user's usage patterns.

Us humans are insanely proficient in adapting to weirdness and suboptimal environments, and plain retarded when it comes to coping when others mess with what we're used to. Classic example: the QWERTY keyboard.

If you want to do a fun experiment, try and watch the pain in two subjects faces. One who has never used predictive text trying to use it for the first time, and one who has used it for years and is trying to use an old phone without it. Now imagine a scenario where every predictive text implementation had tailored itself to the user.

Re: The End of Coding

#28
As the author of Trapeze (spreadsheet like application from way back then) is was nice to be mentioned. People have been trying to make coding go away even before I started coding and so far it's still moving more in the opposite direction.

Re: The End of Coding

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the difference is that what google does is already somewhat fuzzy, when you search for something you're not necessarily even sure what you want the search engine to return. We also don't expect the results to necessarily be perfect which is why the search engine returns more than one result. On the other hand when you're trying to do some specific task you already know in most cases exactly what you want to h…

Well, that's the trade off I'm hoping people are willing to make. Just like we did it for search back when Google was new, for example: we had to learn how to use Google compared to whichever search engine we were using before. It's just like trying to learn a new application. I do believe unless the whole computing system/environment works in this new paradigm, the effort wouldn't have as much impact as I'm picturin…

Google is good for searching immensely vast troves of information simply because there is no other way you could really do it. A categorical index of the entire internet would be fairly un-feasible.

OTOH when we have smaller and more focused collections of information such as programming documentation or catalogues of similar products we tend to find it easier to navigate with categorical listings or simpler search algorithms.

Re: The End of Coding

#30
post #9

I've been working on http://loggur.com for a (very) long time now to address exactly what the author describes. (Note: The home page is very outdated and vague; I'm planning on redoing it upon release; see my other comments about the details here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5811801 ) And I should point out that coding will never fully become unnecessary. Of course many of the repetitive parts of coding can…

Your site looks pretty good to me (and I just viewed it on my phone). Unless by "outdated" you mean, "it doesn't contain the most up-to-date information about our product(s)." In that case, well, I look forward to seeing it! Already added to my Google Calendar. BTW: I know you're probably trying to collect emails of interested parties with your "get notified" form but you may wish to consider a direct "Add to Google…

Thanks! 8)

By "outdated", I was referring to the product description(s).

Nice idea for the Google Calendar! Is that a fairly common thing? I can't recall seeing it anywhere else, but it could just be the bubble I'm in.

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