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"Physical interfaces (and by extension, GUIs) cannot combine at will to create new behavior." Or should it say that we don't yet have good enough GUIs that all

"Physical interfaces (and by extension, GUIs) cannot combine at will to create new behavior." Or should it say that we don't yet have good enough GUIs that allow combination at will, to create new behavior? I don't think it is correct to say that this is impossible. It's difficult to image what this would mean for GUIs, but maybe we could get some ideas from the DSL stuff for example Microsoft and JetBrain were doing some years ago.

jcromartie 15y ago
We've already seen it over and over again: once a GUI is actually combinable, it may as well be a CLI or code.
- andrewflnr 15y ago
  Do you mean that once a GUI is combinable, it will be as hard to understand as CLI? That makes sense to me; infinite potential combinations will always be harder to understand than a limited set of actions.
ilaksh 15y ago
What it says is just completely untrue.. there are examples in this thread, such as Maya.. any form builder is based on combining components on a screen.. these same types of forms are coded by hand by web developers (like myself), yet contain no additional functionality. Components can also be combined, linked and configured with GUIs oftentimes more efficiently than integrating libraries. Colored ASCII code and command lines are great and I use VIM and bash constantly these days, but its just ignorant and irrational to try to say that is the best way to express yourself on a computer. What I think is going on is that people are rationalizing the way they work and also, and this is the main thing, rationalizing a general feeling and stigma for programmers associated with A) using a graphical interface and B) doing anything that isn't inside a terminal and/or classical text editor window. "Real" programmers use bash and emacs/vim/TextMate or whatever. If you're not editing textual source code, you must not be programming. If you're not programming, you're not a real programmer. I think this is the primary idiocy holding back not only software development but also quite a lot of potential business productivity gains from custom software. What is programming? Is it wiring up vacuum tubes? Punching cards? Entering assembly code? Manipulating pointers? Generating Rails apps automatically from the command line? I think that programming shouldn't be limited to ASCII text. People who think that should educate themselves about things like knowledge representation and reasoning, components, program generation, dataflow, structured editing, intentional programming, anything Jonathan Edwards put out, etc. TLDR: you're a bunch of retards. BTW contact lenses were invented in 1887 and MacBooks are completely overpriced. TLDR2: the number 1 and number 2 things holding back software development are source code and CLI.

jcromartie 15y ago

We've already seen it over and over again: once a GUI is actually combinable, it may as well be a CLI or code.

andrewflnr 15y ago
Do you mean that once a GUI is combinable, it will be as hard to understand as CLI? That makes sense to me; infinite potential combinations will always be harder to understand than a limited set of actions.

ilaksh 15y ago

What it says is just completely untrue.. there are examples in this thread, such as Maya.. any form builder is based on combining components on a screen.. these same types of forms are coded by hand by web developers (like myself), yet contain no additional functionality. Components can also be combined, linked and configured with GUIs oftentimes more efficiently than integrating libraries. Colored ASCII code and command lines are great and I use VIM and bash constantly these days, but its just ignorant and irrational to try to say that is the best way to express yourself on a computer. What I think is going on is that people are rationalizing the way they work and also, and this is the main thing, rationalizing a general feeling and stigma for programmers associated with A) using a graphical interface and B) doing anything that isn't inside a terminal and/or classical text editor window. "Real" programmers use bash and emacs/vim/TextMate or whatever. If you're not editing textual source code, you must not be programming. If you're not programming, you're not a real programmer. I think this is the primary idiocy holding back not only software development but also quite a lot of potential business productivity gains from custom software. What is programming? Is it wiring up vacuum tubes? Punching cards? Entering assembly code? Manipulating pointers? Generating Rails apps automatically from the command line? I think that programming shouldn't be limited to ASCII text. People who think that should educate themselves about things like knowledge representation and reasoning, components, program generation, dataflow, structured editing, intentional programming, anything Jonathan Edwards put out, etc. TLDR: you're a bunch of retards. BTW contact lenses were invented in 1887 and MacBooks are completely overpriced. TLDR2: the number 1 and number 2 things holding back software development are source code and CLI.