On Sun, 2 Jul 2000, Mark Guzdial wrote:

> There are at least two uses for programming.  The common one that 
> most people optimize for is building applications or other software 
> to sell.  The other one is "ad hoc" programming, where you use 
> programming for yourself, perhaps for learning or maybe just 

> It's an interesting conjecture, but I'm not sure that I agree with 
> it.  Andy is using the story to argue that "Once we get the right 
> notation, perhaps programming WILL become commonplace." Yet, it's 
> clear that we are hopelessly unsuccessful teaching programming, and 

Just a couple of observations on this:

i. an awful lot of people write an awful lot of quick shell scripts to do
simple jobs

ii. not too long ago, I knew a lot of non-computer people who wrote lots
of HyperCard stacks -- this seems to have died down with the lack of
backing for HypeCard

My point is, that when the tools are there - shell scripts, perl for the
more technically inclined, HyperCard for the less technical - people seem
to use them.


**************************************************************************
Network Technology Corporation	 	    PO Box 600618
Miles R. Fidelman, President 		    Newtonville, MA 02460-0006
mfidelman at ntcorp.com			    617-558-3698
http://www.ntcorp.com		            fax: 617-630-8946			
**************************************************************************