How Do You Do Business Apps? (Squeak/Pro Proposal)

David N. Smith (IBM) dnsmith at watson.ibm.com
Fri Feb 25 23:15:52 UTC 2000


At 13:17 -0700 2/25/2000, John-Reed Maffeo wrote:
> > Are there *ANY* applications written in Squeak that are used by
>> non-programmers?
>
>I thought that one of the goals of Squeak was to make programmers out
>of non-programmers by making the programming experience so easy that
>even a child could do it. I see this transition as something similar
>to the dissemination of reading and writting skills into the
>general population. Literacy has been a tremendous boon to most of
>the worlds population and Codeacy has that same potential.
>
>John-Reed Maffeo
>Mesa, AZ

Squeak is a programmers' programming language in which one should be able to build more accessible interfaces. The Morphic Construction world is a simple example of what might be done.

There is a bigger problem if you want to turn the general population into programmers. Most people either are not capable of, or don't want to think in the rigidly logical way that programmers must. I've tried to describe to others the level of detail and attention to all possible cases that is normal for programmers. Mainly I get very negative responses; it sounds horrible to them.

Maybe someday when kids grow up with teachers who are programmers, and learn programming from an early age, global "programming literacy" will occur.

But, mechanical machinery has been around for a long time, almost everyone can operate complex machinery (a car for example), yet only a few people ever learn (or care) what goes on inside; fewer ever actually repair or enhance the machine. Almost nobody designs cars from scratch; unless you work in the automotive industry, I doubt you've ever met someone who can design a cam shaft, a piston, or an automatic transmission. Yet professional programmers do the equivalent every day.

Most of us like to listen to music; few of us are capable of writing a simple tune, or, given a tune, are capable of writing variations on it.

What we can strive for is programming languages, or programming systems, that make it easier for interested beginners to get started, for more serious programmers to work faster and easier, and for professionals to really be productive.

We can also design programming systems for those people who have some skill or interest but will never be able to successfully handle a big programming system. This might, in fact, be a very productive target for a system. In other fields they are the amateur pilots, weekend mechanics, hams (in the old days), etc. Capable, interested, but who will never fly a 747, design a new Ferrari, or design and build a transmitter.

Dave
_______________________________
David N. Smith
IBM T J Watson Research Center
Hawthorne, NY
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