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Hm, interesting. I've always pictured my Lisp programs as trees. I think it's a more useful representation, but I see what you mean. You're right that this i
by pcmonk 13y ago
Hm, interesting. I've always pictured my Lisp programs as trees. I think it's a more useful representation, but I see what you mean.
You're right that this is orthogonal to Rich Hickey's goal. That's because I think his goal is great for writing simple programs. His goal is to make more programs simple, which is great. My goal is to make it easier to write complex code. As Fred Brooks talks about in No Silver Bullet, there are some problems that are accidental and some that are essential. Hickey is trying to solve the accidental problemms, and I'm trying to make it easier to solve the essential problems. Some logic is just inherently complex -- I want to create tools to make it easier to reason about.
And Excel is not nearly programmable enough to be better than a textual interface to solve the same problems. It's benefit is that it can be used (relatively) easily by non-programmers.
- brudgers 13y agoMy impression is that Rich Hickey is seeking ways to allow programmers to solve complex problems, without writing complex programs. He's been fairly successful relative to other people who write new languages. Excel is entirely programmable using the standard .NET stack and languages [from PowerShell to F#]. If the idea is to target the tool as a new IDE for experienced programmers, how does improve productivity over EMACS or Vim etc.? Or without it being an extension of one of those existing ecosystems, what is gained in exchange for all that is lost? Which suggests to me that incorporating the functionality as an extension to one or more of those ecosystems might be more simple than competing with them for experienced coders.