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> There's the whole discipline of End-User Development dedicated to explore that area.

Thanks for the name, I didn't know there was a field for that.

> General programming is like general nuclear physics; not everyone ''needs'' to know the details, but everyone may benefit of plugging a device to the wall and use the power, without a "priest of electricity" who creates a six-months agile project to do the wiring for them.

Great analogy!




If you didn't know EUD, you may enjoy the seminal works Watch what I do [1] which is available online (mostly; some figures are missing) and Your Wish is My Command [2]. These books are compilations of early articles which explore very interesting approaches to building software artifacts, which look nothing like programming in a general language (though some of them resemble what Bret Victor is making popular nowadays).

BTW, spreadsheets are considered the most successful End-User Development tool; it's not coincidence that modern web languages resemble more and more its reactive programming model.

[1] http://acypher.com/wwid/

[2] http://web.media.mit.edu/~lieber/PBE/Your-Wish/


Thank you! Haven't heard of those books; putting them on my reading list straight away!




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