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Ah I came to comment this. Loved the GUI builder in Delphi, it's where I cut my teeth learning to program as a teenager. Since then, I've seen .NET within Visu

by g105b 6y ago

Ah I came to comment this. Loved the GUI builder in Delphi, it's where I cut my teeth learning to program as a teenager. Since then, I've seen .NET within Visual Studio almost get to the same quality we had with Delphi in 1995, but still way off. Now that everything's a web app wrapped in something like Electron, it should be so much easier to have tooling like this, but yet we're all still building hugely complicated HTML rendering pipelines for something that was a solved problem a couple of decades ago.

ilaksh 6y ago
I personally think the real reason those types of tools seem less common and popular today is that people remember for example the reputation that Visual Basic programmers got (by the way, I was one). Basically, any really convenient RAD/GUI tool has an association with beginner programmers or even users. The last thing programmers want to be identified with is a user. Programming is manipulating cryptic colorful text. That sadly seems to be the definition we are stuck with. You start to get into anything that involves drag & drop, you are inviting other programmers to assume you are not good enough with cryptic text. Its just a stupid psychological thing. And I think it holds back software engineering.
- catalogia 6y ago
  I believe that reframing the matter in terms of user empowerment might be the way forward. To create tools that help casual users accomplish tasks they might otherwise have needed a programmer for is to empower users. Excel is a classic example of user empowering software, as it allows people with the self-image of "user, not programmer" to effectively write programs, even if they may not recognize it as such. I think this reframing might help because scoffing at "user empowerment" would make somebody look like a jerk.
  - robertlagrant 6y ago
    I sell sharp knives as "surgeon empowerment" devices. Anyone can surg!
    - catalogia 6y ago
      If your point is that some tools should be kept from people because they might cut themselves, then I think it's worth mentioning that scalpels are not generally sharper than other knifes that are available to the public. (Joerg Sprave has decent video debunking many scalpel myths: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHTHqWcDaQ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHTHqWcDaQ8) Furthermore scalpels are generally available to the public too: https://www.amazon.com/s/?field-keywords=scalpel https://www.amazon.com/s/?field-keywords=scalpel Analogously, the tools already available to computer users are tools that could harm the user if used improperly. To not empower users because they might harm themselves isn't progressive, it's paternalistic.
- collyw 6y ago
  > You start to get into anything that involves drag & drop, you are inviting other programmers to assume you are not good enough with cryptic text. It's more that drag and drop isn't really good for much when it comes to programming. You can build GUIs with it and some extremely simple tasks like email joruneys, but for anything else visual programming has proven to be pretty poor.
- abnry 6y ago
  You sure its not because of the explosion of web apps?
- readme 6y ago
  Have you tried QtCreator? If so, have you also tried QtDeclarative? Having used QtCreator to build a medium sized GUI, it was a pain. The XML it produces is too unwieldy to manually edit, so that's out (though I did edit it a few times to overcome bugs in QtCreator) The QtCreator GUI itself is very robust but if you want to do something that's off the beaten path good luck, you're gonna be doing a lot of trial/error clicking and iteration. There were times when everything was "right" in QtCreator, and the result didn't work... I would much prefer to use something like QtDeclarative if I do it again. It's easier to tell the computer exactly what I want, and then get exactly what I want, when the language for expressing what I want is concise and small.

by g105b 6y ago

ilaksh 6y ago

I personally think the real reason those types of tools seem less common and popular today is that people remember for example the reputation that Visual Basic programmers got (by the way, I was one). Basically, any really convenient RAD/GUI tool has an association with beginner programmers or even users. The last thing programmers want to be identified with is a user. Programming is manipulating cryptic colorful text. That sadly seems to be the definition we are stuck with. You start to get into anything that involves drag & drop, you are inviting other programmers to assume you are not good enough with cryptic text. Its just a stupid psychological thing. And I think it holds back software engineering.

catalogia 6y ago
I believe that reframing the matter in terms of user empowerment might be the way forward. To create tools that help casual users accomplish tasks they might otherwise have needed a programmer for is to empower users. Excel is a classic example of user empowering software, as it allows people with the self-image of "user, not programmer" to effectively write programs, even if they may not recognize it as such. I think this reframing might help because scoffing at "user empowerment" would make somebody look like a jerk.
- robertlagrant 6y ago
  I sell sharp knives as "surgeon empowerment" devices. Anyone can surg!
  - catalogia 6y ago
    If your point is that some tools should be kept from people because they might cut themselves, then I think it's worth mentioning that scalpels are not generally sharper than other knifes that are available to the public. (Joerg Sprave has decent video debunking many scalpel myths: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHTHqWcDaQ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHTHqWcDaQ8) Furthermore scalpels are generally available to the public too: https://www.amazon.com/s/?field-keywords=scalpel https://www.amazon.com/s/?field-keywords=scalpel Analogously, the tools already available to computer users are tools that could harm the user if used improperly. To not empower users because they might harm themselves isn't progressive, it's paternalistic.
collyw 6y ago
> You start to get into anything that involves drag & drop, you are inviting other programmers to assume you are not good enough with cryptic text. It's more that drag and drop isn't really good for much when it comes to programming. You can build GUIs with it and some extremely simple tasks like email joruneys, but for anything else visual programming has proven to be pretty poor.
abnry 6y ago
You sure its not because of the explosion of web apps?
readme 6y ago
Have you tried QtCreator? If so, have you also tried QtDeclarative? Having used QtCreator to build a medium sized GUI, it was a pain. The XML it produces is too unwieldy to manually edit, so that's out (though I did edit it a few times to overcome bugs in QtCreator) The QtCreator GUI itself is very robust but if you want to do something that's off the beaten path good luck, you're gonna be doing a lot of trial/error clicking and iteration. There were times when everything was "right" in QtCreator, and the result didn't work... I would much prefer to use something like QtDeclarative if I do it again. It's easier to tell the computer exactly what I want, and then get exactly what I want, when the language for expressing what I want is concise and small.