higher level languages

Gary McGovern zeppy at australia.edu
Mon Mar 1 15:01:13 UTC 2004


Thanks for your feedback Lex.
I get into that with HCI*. You almost read my mind about variables. You
have to learn it !!!! How can that be overcome or should it ?
People have their own fields of learning, maybe learning computing on top
of that is inconvenient ???

Libraries is great,as I understand, that is one thing that makes Squeak a
good meta language.

*(diverging a lot, I argue with myself a bit about man-computer
symbiosis.There is a symbiosis, there isn't a symbiosis :). Soon after
reading it,thankfully, I read the Smalltalk paper, to serve the creative
spirit, which sounds kinder.
Man can do without computers, they just help him control his world) 
Thanks,
Gary





>"Gary McGovern" <zeppy at australia.edu> wrote:
>> Can anyone say what the highest level languages will end up like. I like
>> tiling but, I think there is something else. I think what I've used in
>> Squeak might fall a bit short but I cannot quite put muy finger on it. 
>> 
>> I think drawing think drwing on the screen is the  end - but how to
script
>> it , program it I think is still a problem.
>> 
>
>I don't know about the hard question.  That is wonderful to think about,
>however.  Roughly, I think of (a) having lots of convenient *libraries*
>around, and (b) I think of having my algorithms being effortless to
>encode for someone who is experienced with the system.  Oh, and (c), I
>suppose there will be a major language where non-experienced people can
>still struggle along and make useful things happen.  This latter one
>would include lots of friendly graphics and lots of drag and drop and
>lots of feedback from the tool.  But more specifically?  I have no idea.
>
>A few notes, however.
>
>The available libraries in a language are an important topic that is
>often overlooked.  If you want to make a "simple" web server it could
>require ten lines  of code or a thousand, depending only on whether you
>have a web server handy in your library.  The library gives you the
>words that your language can use.
>
>It is misguided to try and make all tasks accessible to completely
>inexperienced people.  I don't think you should need a college degree to
>do most programming on computers.  But, like driving a car or making
>waffles, people should expect to spend some time on it before
>internalizing it.  This trend in HCI really bothers me.  You shouldn't
>have to study (much) to use a toaster, but a VCR really is complex
>enough that it requires some thought and -- yes -- study of some sort to
>even understand what it is doing.  Likewise, for computer programming. 
>Make it easy for people who know what a variable is or who know that
>tapes hold recorded video, but if you don't understand variables and
>don't understand what a video is, you need to put in some study time. 
>Sure, build the tutorial into the interface if you want, but at some
>point the user really needs to put the brain in gear.
>
>Finally, don't blow off text.  Text is very powerful both for people and
>for tool implementors, and so IMHO it should only be abandoned when you
>are working on the extreme edges of non-studying users.  People learn
>Smalltalk syntax in a day or less, and Smalltalk syntax is enough to do
>practically anything.  Non-programmers do all kinds of things with
>spreadsheets (or, maybe they are programmers now).  So don't obsess over
>the text.  Heck, even Squeak's etoys are using tiles *to build
>sentences*.
>
>
>-Lex
>






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