
Ask HN: Why are we still using text editors to write code? - kairichard
Software has gotten more and more complex and distributed meaning code is no longer in one place&#x2F;repo. Yet we rely on code editing capabilities that have not changed much over the last +20yrs. I am seriously puzzled. I thought that by now, we would have progressed onto something else. Than again I find myself using VIM for almost a decade unable to think of what could be truly superior to wrangling some characters in order to produce a functioning program.
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FroshKiller
Probably because structured text is expressive, portable, and almost
universally readable. And my voice isn't good enough to sing code into being
without syntax errors.

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kairichard
In a sense this is also true for assembly - what we did here was to abstract
away details and finding higher level concepts. I am wondering what is keeping
us from leaving text based programming altogether. I know there are several
tools that allow some kind of visual programming e.g. Unreal Engine and
blender - maybe even Github Actions counts. But they all do not seem to catch
on to a wider audience and I wonder why that is.

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salawat
How would a visual compiler even work? You can't really just skip the text
layer unless you're willing to be married to one set of paradigms.

Plus, what makes anyone want to bring mechanics into programming?

Look at an internal combustion engine. That's your physical manifestation of
visual programming. It's a bunch of blocks of different shapes and sizes
fastened together to do a task. It is made no easier to grok without text. The
people who can operate on such systems are called mechanics, and even they
still need text to reference from time to time.

Part of programming, and arguably where the Art shines through brightest is
_linguistic mastery_ through which comes the ability to visualize the System
Under Work.

I'm increasingly reluctant to try to teach coding primarily as opposed to
computer science. Doing so robs the practitioner of that ability to perceive
the visualization of what the code _is_ rather than what the code actually
reads as.

To lose that perspective is to be completely out of touch with a program. It's
just a bunch of words and desperate flailing to line everything up until the
compiler stops complaining. Fighting a merciless djinn hoping that you don't
get saddled with the unintended consequences of not realizing what it actually
was you were doing.

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skilled
And don't forget if you want a drag n' drop UI -- someone has to code and
maintain it regardless.

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kairichard
True but only until the 'language/tool' becomes self-hosted.

