

Awaiting the Day When Everyone Writes Software - b-man
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/business/yourmoney/28slip.html?ex=1327640400&en=d2d090cf2db27104&ei=5090

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j_baker
"Programmers don’t know what a computer user wants because they spend their
days interacting with machines. They hunch over keyboards, pecking out
individual lines of code in esoteric programming languages, like medieval
monks laboring over illustrated manuscripts."

Isn't this a bit like saying that architects don't know what kind of houses
people want because they spend all day poring over diagrams? Or like saying
landscapers don't know what people want because they spend all their time
landscaping?

I hate to break it to the New York Times, but programmers are _actual people_.
We're not that different from other people. No really!

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brazzy
Hey guys, heard about this new programming language? It's almost likey writing
English. People reckon it will make writing software so easy that anyone can
write whatever software they need - making professional programmers
unnecessary within a few years.

It's called COBOL.

(from ca. 1960, that's what people really thought back then)

~~~
Qz
To be fair, 'programmer' meant something slightly different back then, and
what it used to refer to no longer actually exists.

~~~
brazzy
Well, it meant someone writing assembler code, and in some shops they'd be
given very detailed instructions of what to implement by "program designers"
that read almost like English... or code in a high-level language. So yeah,
those kind of programmers don't exit anymore, and "designers" are now
programmers - but they have to know more about programming because there is no
separate programmer to iron out the quirks in the design.

Heaping layers of abstraction onto each other is NOT something that will
inevitably yield "do what I mean" functionality.

What the article describes as Simonyi's "revolutionary idea" is no different
than CASE, MDD and MDA - the same (at least) 20 year old pipe dream in various
guises that nobody has ever gotten to work except in very narrow fields.

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hga
From 2007; unfortunately, the company has gone silent for the last half year
as far as I can tell. People watching them have also been "frustrated by the
secrecy and lack of urgency to release" (Martin Fowler:
<http://martinfowler.com/bliki/IntentionalSoftware.html>).

~~~
jpenner
Martin's site seems to be down at the moment, so it may be worth linking to
the video of our DSL DevCon talk / demo. <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/data/dd727740.aspx>

(Full disclosure: I work for Intentional Software. Feel free to ask me about
what we do; I'll answer if I can. We're not so much "secretive" anymore as
"small and busy.")

~~~
hga
BTW, I still had a copy in a browser tab and just saved it out. As for
question, how about:

When can I try out some of your toys?

How much will that cost. How much will they cost when finished? ("Free" or
"Not Free" or "If you have to ask..." are all acceptable answers.)

My interest in what you're doing is largely constrained by my ability to try
out your stuff someday.

~~~
jpenner
As far as I know, we are still interested in hearing from people who believe
they have interesting pilot projects that could strongly benefit from our our
tools. Magnus Christerson would be the one to talk to about that. Generally
speaking: "not free". :)

------
Luyt
"he devised the programming method that the company’s software developers have
used for the last quarter-century."

Would this method be the 'Hungarian Notation'?

~~~
j_baker
I think they mean OOP:

"Simonyi introduced the techniques of object-oriented programming that he had
learned at Xerox to Microsoft."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Simonyi#Microsoft>

~~~
brazzy
Well, it's hungarian notation that's associated with him in particular, like
it or not.

------
CoryMathews
"Programmers don’t know what a computer user wants because they spend their
days interacting with machines. They hunch over keyboards, pecking out
individual lines of code in esoteric programming languages, like medieval
monks laboring over illustrated manuscripts."

"programmers are drowning in ignorance, complexity and error."

...to say Your welcome or F@*k off?

~~~
pw0ncakes
The first of those isn't especially meaningful. Programming languages aren't
_that_ hard to understand. What's difficult (right now) for many people is the
connection between the code and what happens on the screen.

The second snippet is amusing, given the mention of C++ in the first
paragraph.

However, I think software has a problem in general with the fact that one
shitty system or API can lead to cruft in other pieces that depend on it,
leading to generally poor quality. Abstractions and interfaces are designed to
prevent some of this, but the worst programmers always find a way to abuse and
violate those.

------
doki_pen

      BJARNE STROUSTRUP, the designer of C++, the most 
      influential programming language of the last 25 years, has
      said that “our technological civilization depends on
      software.”
    

I stopped reading there.

~~~
Luyt
Why? Because C is the most influential programming language?

~~~
doki_pen
I'm only sure it isn't c++

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pw0ncakes
I'd rather get to a world in which incompetents _stop_ writing software.

~~~
timwiseman
Agreed, but we will likely never get there (many professional programmers are
incompetent, to say nothing of the amateurs that need to do little snippets,
and there will always be beginners that are incompetent now just because they
are learning to be competent).

A concept like this, if it is possible, can work from the other way and help
prevent the incompetents from being dangerous. I doubt it will ever prevent
people from needing to do low level programming, abstractions leak as the
article says. But if done well, it could help people with minimal knowledge
create truly useful things. This would help free the truly skilled programmers
to work on hard and important problems.

