I respect what Simonyi did for the industry back in the day, but Intentional Software is just useless vaporware (or
-at best- weird academic research without practical applications).
As a Microsoft shareholder, I'm disappointed they're paying money for it (probably only to get Simonyi back, though his technical expertise is totally outdated and his management skills are questionable).
Charles Simonyi on Intentional Software Joining Microsoft
41–50 of 52 posts
Re: Charles Simonyi on Intentional Software Joining Microsoft
#42It always amazed me that during their ~10 years of existence they never actually produced anything visible, other than demos. I remember I had been very excited about their "intentional" approach, even though so many years later I tend to think that it is actually an evolutionary dead-end (anyone remembers 4GL and 5GL languages? The late 90s when CASE tools and visual IDEs like Delphi were all the rage?). There is no…
Work on Intentional Programming started at Microsoft Research in the 90s. Simonyi has been on this path for 20+ years. Did the Intentional website have any info on their work before the acquisition? There's nothing there now.
I interviewed for the Intentional Programming group at Microsoft back in 1993! Their demo back then was amazing. I thought they'd have something out within a few years, and 24 years later I don't think anything commercial has come of it.
Re: Charles Simonyi on Intentional Software Joining Microsoft
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
The late 90s when CASE tools and visual IDEs like Delphi were all the rage?). There is no silver bullet. You seem to imply that Delphi was a fad that fell short of what it promised. On the contrary, it was incredibly productive. The reasons it has become a niche product have nothing to do with the validity of its features. So if you are wondering why IS hasn't some product to show, it's not because the ideas are wron…
I suspect RAD/4GL will come back into fashion once someone gets a web version of it right. The current crop of tools aren't quite there, as they don't let you work outside the hard rails. Google's "app maker" looks pretty close, but with issues around per user cost for some use cases. It does support freeform code, both client and server side, so no hard rails https://developers.google.com/appmaker/
The question about programming tools is fascinating. There isn't a minimal consensus about its evolution.
My two cents is it's more about usability than anything else.
Re: Charles Simonyi on Intentional Software Joining Microsoft
#44For reference, Simonyi worked on the legendary Xerox Alto, where he wrote Bravo , the first WYSIWYG editor. He later joined Microsoft in 1991, where he started Word.
1981, not 1991
Re: Charles Simonyi on Intentional Software Joining Microsoft
#45I respect what Simonyi did for the industry back in the day, but Intentional Software is just useless vaporware (or -at best- weird academic research without practical applications). As a Microsoft shareholder, I'm disappointed they're paying money for it (probably only to get Simonyi back, though his technical expertise is totally outdated and his management skills are questionable).
Having seen what they can do with it and the speed with which they can do it, you are wrong. It's neither useless nor vaporware.
Re: Charles Simonyi on Intentional Software Joining Microsoft
#46"I wasn't able to make anything interesting out of Microsoft so I'm joining them again"
Personal attacks aren't allowed on HN. Please don't post like this.
Re: Charles Simonyi on Intentional Software Joining Microsoft
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know it is not a fair comparison, but modern IDEs such as IntelliJ IDEA do pretty much everything demonstrated in this video. They build a database of the project, and let you do refactoring with the help of that. The only thing that is notably missing from IDEA is the graphical representation: but raise your hand if you ever missed to see your program represented as a flowchart, for example. Does it actually have…
> The only thing that is notably missing from IDEA is the graphical representation: but raise your hand if you ever missed to see your program represented as a flowchart, for example. (raises hand). > Does it actually have any real value? Yes. > Perhaps, while you are learning programming. Or when you're trying to understand the structure of a program you've just been assigned to work on, or that you wrote years ago…
Whenever I try to understand a program, I do draw structures of it. But it is NEVER the structure of the source code as is, but some parts the main flow with the unimportant bits left out (what is unimportant depends on the goal of the task at hand), mapped in some way that aligns with the goal of the investigation. It also has to include the runtime components, eg. objects, not classes.
Watching Eric Evans talk about DDD along the example of maps was a real eye opener for me. This: https://www.infoq.com/presentations/model-to-work-evans
I tried to use tools like Enterprise Architect in the past but failed to produce anything useful with them (that includes architecture diagrams - charts based on standards never seem to be fit for what I actually wanted to communicate).
The closest I ever got to usefulness was with database structures, we did manage to generate the actual production schema from ERwin for a SQL database at one place I worked, but of course, not the stored procedures.
Re: Charles Simonyi on Intentional Software Joining Microsoft
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
The late 90s when CASE tools and visual IDEs like Delphi were all the rage?). There is no silver bullet. You seem to imply that Delphi was a fad that fell short of what it promised. On the contrary, it was incredibly productive. The reasons it has become a niche product have nothing to do with the validity of its features. So if you are wondering why IS hasn't some product to show, it's not because the ideas are wron…
I suspect RAD/4GL will come back into fashion once someone gets a web version of it right. The current crop of tools aren't quite there, as they don't let you work outside the hard rails. Google's "app maker" looks pretty close, but with issues around per user cost for some use cases. It does support freeform code, both client and server side, so no hard rails https://developers.google.com/appmaker/
CSS Flexbox could bring RAD back to the web. Flexbox is a breath of fresh air after dealing with standard CSS layout 'tricks'.
Re: Charles Simonyi on Intentional Software Joining Microsoft
#49I respect what Simonyi did for the industry back in the day, but Intentional Software is just useless vaporware (or -at best- weird academic research without practical applications). As a Microsoft shareholder, I'm disappointed they're paying money for it (probably only to get Simonyi back, though his technical expertise is totally outdated and his management skills are questionable).
Genuinely curious how you're assessing his technical expertise - you must have serious insider access to be able to judge it as totally outdated.
Re: Charles Simonyi on Intentional Software Joining Microsoft
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The only thing that is notably missing from IDEA is the graphical representation: but raise your hand if you ever missed to see your program represented as a flowchart, for example. (raises hand). > Does it actually have any real value? Yes. > Perhaps, while you are learning programming. Or when you're trying to understand the structure of a program you've just been assigned to work on, or that you wrote years ago…
Whenever I try to understand a program, I do draw structures of it. But it is NEVER the structure of the source code as is, but some parts the main flow with the unimportant bits left out (what is unimportant depends on the goal of the task at hand), mapped in some way that aligns with the goal of the investigation. It also has to include the runtime components, eg. objects, not classes. Watching Eric Evans talk abou…
>Whenever I try to understand a program, I do draw structures of it. But it is NEVER the structure of the source code as is, but some parts the main flow with the unimportant bits left out
While some tools might be more or less accommodating, there's nothing about visual representation per se that can't do that (including filtering the non-important parts, producing something akin to UML's interaction diagrams, etc).