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A programming language that non-programmers can use is like a written language that illiterate people can read: it's an oxymoron. (The minute you can use it, y

A programming language that non-programmers can use is like a written language that illiterate people can read: it's an oxymoron. (The minute you can use it, you're a "programmer"; the minute you can read, you're "literate")

tenkabuto 10y ago
The previous form of Eve wasn't quite a programming language at all. It was akin to databases in Excel.
ModernMech 10y ago
Not everyone who writes is necessarily a writer. In the same vein, not everyone who wants to tell a computer what to do wants to be a programmer.
- logicallee 10y ago
  but when people say "that non-programmers can use" they don't mean "that people whose job title isn't 'programmer' can use." They mean "that people who can't program can use." it's a bit confusing and I suppose I could be wrong. (They could mean "people whose job title isn't 'programmer.'")
  - MichaelBurge 10y ago
    Somebody who makes a spreadsheet is telling a computer what to do. Are advanced users of Excel programmers? Businesses occasionally express the business rules in the form of spreadsheets to be directly implemented into code. Spreadsheets even double as unit tests.
    - falcor84 10y ago
      > Are advanced users of Excel programmers? Yes. Edit: here's a previous discussion about a Turing Machine in excel - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6416631 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6416631