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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?

#551

Post by brundolf »

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…

With a little bit of charity, I don't take it as a serious rant ("I can't believe we have to deal with this stuff! I demand it be made easier!") so much as musings about possibility ("How much better could this be? In what ways?"). I think the tone is a little bit exaggerated on purpose, for effect, as if one is imagining a future world in which we've progressed so much that 2020's status quo really does become unacceptable.

I think as a set of musings it's totally valid: there really is a ton of yak-shaving that still stands between "coders" and "non-coders" which actually has very little to do with code itself. It's a good exercise to brainstorm which speedbumps are unnecessary and what we could do to remove them.

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

#552

Post by moistbar »

em500 wrote: post #363

The literal answer to the headline question is "You can, just open Developer Tools -> Console and code away." But it seems the question in the article is actually "Why can't I write node.js code inside my browser?", followed by what seems to me lots of confusion between coding and program execution environments (web-browser or MacOS). You can code in JavaScript on most browsers without installing anything. Sure, the…

I don't know how he manages to write Node.js programs when one of the first things he says is that he couldn't get node to install.

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

#553

Post by jaegerpicker »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #443
lionkor wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Programming COULD use a lot of simplification I disagree, actually. There are plenty of languages, and even visual programming (via flow-diagrams, like Unreal Engine's "Blueprint" and Blender's shader flow diagrams), for those who just want to play around. For people who want to write a quick and dirty script, languages like python make it very easy already (relative to what they actually do). > Programming COULD u…

And yet... when Flash provided a simple, easy, way for people to get into coding using a GUI, there was an explosion of creativity. Flash was terrible for all sorts of other reasons. But it did demonstrate that there is a class of incredibly creative people out there who can create amazing things, but not on the command line, and not using the tools currently available. How do we get them doing that again?

Have you looked at the indie game market? Unity rules all right now (yes I know there are other engines but Unity is clearly the big dog). 1000's and 1000's of games developed or being developed. Steam has endless lists of them. A lot of the Flash games moved to Unity but the bar was raised as developers pushed to stand out. So now you Flash game isn't enough to stand out. You need something really special. A perfect example is Team Meat, they made Super Meat Boy and Super Meat Boy Forever. Half of that team started making Flash games and now it's indie games. That pattern has repeated itself over and over. The difference is the delivery platform, it's either mobile games or indie games or both often.

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

#554

Post by tshaddox »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #443
lionkor wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Programming COULD use a lot of simplification I disagree, actually. There are plenty of languages, and even visual programming (via flow-diagrams, like Unreal Engine's "Blueprint" and Blender's shader flow diagrams), for those who just want to play around. For people who want to write a quick and dirty script, languages like python make it very easy already (relative to what they actually do). > Programming COULD u…

And yet... when Flash provided a simple, easy, way for people to get into coding using a GUI, there was an explosion of creativity. Flash was terrible for all sorts of other reasons. But it did demonstrate that there is a class of incredibly creative people out there who can create amazing things, but not on the command line, and not using the tools currently available. How do we get them doing that again?

Have you seen Processing or P5.js? I can’t really compare them to what Flash was like, but they’re both extremely accessible ways to make cool artwork, animations, etc. and a great way to learn coding by “making real things.” There’s also a big community and some very nice educational videos.

https://processing.org/

https://p5js.org/

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

#555

Post by selfhoster11 »

user-the-name wrote: post #445
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Terminals of 2020 and beyond need to have first-class support for audio, video, images, and peripheral interactivity/customization. This shouldn't be supported in a first-class way, it should be supported as an extension where applicable, in keeping with Unix principles. We already have this with X11. > It should be possible to `cat` an image, or a video, or even previews of Word and Photoshop documents Again this…

"We have X11 for this" just means "we can't do this, use a different environment". The point is, we should not HAVE to use a different environment. Images and media should be first-class citizens in a CLI just as much as they are in a GUI. There is nothing about a CLI that says it has to only handle text.

Thank you, you understand my point correctly. It's frustrating that most of the responses think that X11 is a solution to this.

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

#556

Post by dang »

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…

Please don't cross into personal attack and name-calling in HN comments. It's against the site rules: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Indignation commonly gets a lot of upvotes but it's not what we're looking for here.

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

#557

Post by axaxs »

aaomidi wrote: post #507
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…

You probably should've held back. This is the exact type of behavior thats unwelcoming in this industry. You don't have to type to write programs. Many people don't. It's why applications that do visual programming have opened the way for AMAZING bursts of creativity. Everyone should be able to communicate with a computer. The more people that are the more likely it is were going to make fascinating things. Your elit…

Absolutely not. I'm not sure why programming is the one field people make a joke of. It doesn't happen in any other field that I'm aware of. Hear me out.

Do you ever see ads for 'become a doctor in 6 weeks, land a job'? Or plumber? Or electrician? Or anything else? No, but you do for programming.

Do you ever see people whining that being a medical doctor is too hard and confusing, and demand that everyone should just have a handheld with webmd?

Programming as a field requires many years to really understand. And even when you understand, it's just some niche, not -everything-. Nobody knows everything. And that's not completely dissimilar from other trades/professions.

I'm not trying to gatekeep here. I encourage everyone to learn to program, -if- they take the time to learn. If they don't, they do not belong doing it as a profession for others. Just as people can toy around with wood in their garage, so long as they don't call themselves a professional carpenter. That's how you end up with glaring security and privacy problems that we read about nearly daily. Imagine if anyone could call themselves a doctor, and constantly read stories of people dying from horribly botched practices.

I think the only real solution here is for the profession to be certified somehow, as other countries do.

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

#558

Post by [deleted] »

user-the-name wrote: post #106
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…

/usr/local/bin has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with programming. Nothing. Zero. Zilch. It is completely superfluous knowledge. It is only required because, as the author correctly points out, the tools we use are BAD. They are absolutely fucking AWFUL. /usr/local/bin is an implementation detail from an OS nobody has used for decades. It's still here because we refuse to fix these ridiculous things. Nobody sho…

[deleted]

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

#559

Post by brundolf »

Lots of commenters here are failing to see past the snarky (in my opinion, tongue-in-cheek) tone and missing the greater point, which isn't a fundamentally new idea, but is always worth revisiting for discussion:

How can we remove as much yak-shaving as possible, so that a person who can understand logic can use it to make computers do things without first learning a bunch of esoteric knowledge required to get the ball rolling? How can we make more Excels?

I think the idea of including a real, accessible, coding environment in a popular web browser is a pretty neat one, if for no other reason than the fact that everyone has a web browser and generally knows how to use it. It would open things up for a very large number of people. Like the author, I doubt Google would ever do this, but it's fun to think about.

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

#560

Post by steve76 »

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 have no patience any more for lazy know it alls in regards to programming.

Lock yourself in a palace of a library while the world goes to hell around you. Once you're finally out in the real world, make it even worse with ruthless greed and betrayal.

Yeah. Thanks Gandhi.

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