The problem with programming and how to fix it

Post by vanderZwan » Wed, Aug 01, 2018, 12:44 AM UTC

AstralStorm wrote: post #77

vanderZwan wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No it's not a good idea to make programming more accessible. We don't have easy literature, we don't think someone who reads and writes solely with fridge magnets (#) has mastered the language. You're mixing up the content of writing with the methods of writing them. Writing "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet" is still as poetic when using fridge magnets. Because of that, you fail to see that modern wri…

Programming does not have a nice alphabet because it has to be unambiguously defined for stupid computers to understand. There is no such thing as a programming alphabet.

Post by randomsearch » Wed, Aug 01, 2018, 2:15 PM UTC

quuxman wrote: post #79

randomsearch wrote: post #40

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I’m interested as to whether there really is complexity that can’t be simplified in general. Here’s an obvious example where it could be: web apps are mostly conceptually simple: a thin client which is basically a UI framework talks to a process on a remote server. So you need something to develop the UI and something for the server. But instead of the “web UI toolkit” (which could mostly be a graphical tool) we have…

conceptually simple, perhaps, but in practice they are far from it. HTML, CSS, JS, and web server tools are complex because web pages are extremely parameterized over different content, client sizes and types, user preferences, and data. From being a long time web developer, the graphical layout tools are basically only useful for graphic design, because they output code that only works for the exact layout and conte…

Post by randomsearch » Wed, Aug 01, 2018, 2:23 PM UTC

randomsearch wrote: post #94

AstralStorm wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please describe some of those "more accessible" approaches and I'll probably tell you that they are already here and/or have already failed. Otherwise the idea is completely not constructive.

I'd say your comment is not constructive: you're asking me to name all the solutions, otherwise my observation has no merit? I'll expand a little. Let's take a single example: developing a single page web application. To know how to do that, I need to learn HTML, CSS, JS Frameworks, web pack or whatever. Linters, preprocessors, package management .... Contrast that to building flash app where a designer could use a G…

Post by vanderZwan » Wed, Aug 01, 2018, 4:48 PM UTC

AstralStorm wrote: post #92

vanderZwan wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have trouble with metaphor, perhaps? Because "alphabet" happens to be the fundamental writing system for human languages and therefore crucial to enabling literacy. I am simply using it as an analogy for us needing better programming environments to enable better programming literacy.

How would that better environment look? So far, we had fails like Squeak and relatively low succeesses like Jupyter and Delphi. The root of the problem is that humans communicate in extremely ambiguous and convoluted ways which makes programming quite atypical.

Post by Glench » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 11:17 PM UTC

AstralStorm wrote: post #74

Glench wrote: post #71

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Yo, I have to say something about the sexism in the parent comment for this thread. Specifically: > You want my mother to be programming? My sister? This is sexist because it assumes that those people (women) can't / shouldn't be / aren't programmers. It's exclusionary and has the effect of making people who aren't male / professional programmers feel unwelcome. If instead you specified something like "people without…

Let's be ageist instead, since that is apparently more acceptable. /s > you want my granddad to do programming?