3 ms·
This is a song we've heard before: the 4th generation programming languages [1]. They failed completely. Programming is no more about "the codes" than writing
by silvestrov 5y ago
This is a song we've heard before: the 4th generation programming languages [1]. They failed completely.
Programming is no more about "the codes" than writing novels is about spelling.
The difficulty in writing novels is being able to tell a story well (just like some people a good at telling jokes, others not). It is not about how good you are at spelling words. Most winners of spelling bee competitions never become good authors.
You can't make most people into being good authors by handing them a tape recorder.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth-generation_programming_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth-generation_programming_...
- js8 5y agoI feel like it didn't really fail because of the technical aspect, but rather a business one. Once such a tool is successful, there will be lock-in and/or slightly incompatible competitors. You, as a user, become dependent on single company, which is almost always abused in the end. Both factors are driven by the complexity of the systems that were built with the tool (the complexity hides in the tool, which made these systems easy to write in the first place). A similar thing IMHO happened to Unix, Common Lisp.. the only way to avoid the fate is to establish and maintain a common standard, but that means yielding the power (it's not particularly appealing business model) and is a subject to the tragedy of the commons, and embrace/extend/extinguish.
- verinus 5y agothis! exactly- even though I have read many interesting other reasons why this will not work out. programming is about modeling and formulating a problem so that a machine "understands" it and can execute it. Not so many people can and want to do it well...