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You’re assuming such a language is necessary is where this goes wrong. Non-technical people should be able to use their native cultures language to query for a

You’re assuming such a language is necessary is where this goes wrong. Non-technical people should be able to use their native cultures language to query for answers. Or in the case of scientists & mathematicians, the well defined symbols & glyphs of their field. Programming is the act of organizing information for a specific context, ideally efficiently to the computer, but that’s not a requirement. Clearly organized results are the only real requirement of software. All the rules we add on these days are to the benefit of corporate keeping things tidy by pretending making software is like building a car. As someone getting into data science as a hobby, I have no interest in Python or R syntax. Like with PGP & a host of other issues, terrible UX is an impediment, and an artificial shield for those that slog through learning what is really superfluous crap given their actual task of making sense of business data. Give me an app where I can select a database, and compose a math equation with nothing but plain math, as like React components, or a word processor with scaled up Unicode symbols, or use a game engine like Unreal, for all I care. And for day to day life things like Siri are fine. This is my huge beef with the tech world is believing everyone needs to fetishize source code to use a computer. The “design is life” era has resulted in a ton of boring/limited business “apps”, and over designed one off UX that lacks broad application. Software as a marketplace in general is suffering the App Store problem: it’s so easy to copy-paste SOMETHING out the door via Github or however, we’re socializing around the most visible, IMO, well known concepts, minor iterations on known information. Often wonder if there’s a theory there that might explain why society is where it is lately: we’re not generating enough emotionally unique information. Just fetishizing minor improvements to well known emotional norms.

m463 7y ago
I have a friend, an engineer but not a programmer, who wrote a fortran program he's been using for decades to solve real problems. But then recently he had to solve it for 10 different things instead of one. So he copy/pasted his calculations 10 times. He said the problem he was running into now was when he tweaked something, he had to change something in 10 places. I think that's how normal people solve problems. They just bumble ahead doing what they know will work, but it's not pretty.

m463 7y ago

I have a friend, an engineer but not a programmer, who wrote a fortran program he's been using for decades to solve real problems. But then recently he had to solve it for 10 different things instead of one. So he copy/pasted his calculations 10 times. He said the problem he was running into now was when he tweaked something, he had to change something in 10 places. I think that's how normal people solve problems. They just bumble ahead doing what they know will work, but it's not pretty.