Visual Basic got partway there by having WYSIWYG user interface editing, but you still had to code all of business logic using the visual basic programming language.
What I’m talking about is replacing the latter with something that is not just essentially a text string. Maybe one way to think about it is when you are coding in visual studio with a language that has good IntelliSense, it will pop up with various class members and other details because it understands the objects you are working with. Maybe there’s a way to extend that idea, where there’s not much manual typing involved at all and it’s mostly tapping on the option you want based on what is relevant in the current scope.
Microsoft had a labs project 5 or 10 years ago attempting to do just this, although it never really got very far before it was canceled. I wish I could remember the name of it now, it was intriguing. Definitely not as productive as coding via a keyboard on a real computer, but it was the best experience you could get on a mobile device, so that’s not nothing.
Maybe the real problem is there’s no way to actually run/use anything you create on mobile. Sure maybe if you’re making a website, but there’s no way to build an app or a helper function that can be used directly on an iPhone or iPad. I assume android has more possibilities here, but I still have yet to see something that will compile code on an android device directly to an APK and install it locally without requiring some sort of server to do the heavy lifting.
It’s interesting to see the communities growing around iOS shortcuts. It’s crazy the amount of hoops people are willing to jump through to create shortcuts that would otherwise be fairly simple scripts in a standard programming language, and then people share them on Reddit communities and elsewhere. If people are willing to bend over backwards for that, just think what a purpose-built system could be used for.