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Ah, another silver bullet. Programming is not the only discipline that has adopted specialized languages. Disciplines like music and mathematics also use their

Ah, another silver bullet. Programming is not the only discipline that has adopted specialized languages. Disciplines like music and mathematics also use their own unique descriptive notations. Programming is not hard because of programming languages; on the contrary, learning a programming language is by far the easiest step in learning to program. Becoming a good musician, or a good mathematician, takes years of practise and study. Programming is no different. That's not to say you can't simplify programming, in the same way that Guitar Hero and Wii Music simplify music. But you can only do this by hiding complexity, by restricting the user to a small subset of a very broad subject. This can be very useful; but you can't replace programming altogether using this technique, any more than Guitar Hero has made the electric guitar obsolete.

anigbrowl 17y ago
Not to disagree with your substantive point, but I think Guitar Hero is a very poor comparison. As far as I'm aware, there's no way to take one of these toys and create any kind of original music with it, other than by smashing it into something and recording the resulting noise. A better comparison would be instruments for making (mostly) electronic music, such as synthesizers, samplers, and sequencers. These things too can become arbitrarily complex within their specific domains (Csound being a prime example), but most of the innovation is devoted to making it easier for the mediocre player to obtain interesting musical results, at the expense of some flexibility or authenticity. This can aid learning to some degree, and substantially democratizes toolsets - for example, although I have neither the space nor the cash to buy a piano, I have access to such good emulations that it doesn't matter. Of greater importance than either of these are the innovative possibilities for creating new kinds of music that are not achievable by conventional means - even if you dislike electronic music, you probably enjoy the contributions from of audio technology to film soundtracks. You are quite right that electronic emulations will not and should not displace real instruments like guitars, trumpets, drums etc., no matter what their level of sophistication. The same is true is of domain-specific modeling tools and pure programming. However, I submit that within their limitations, such tools have the potential to vastly increase overall productivity. And as I've observed before, patch-based 'analog computers' have a trick or two up their sleeve yet: now that cheap digital von Neumann computers are a commodity, people are doing interesting and usual things with the emulated versions that would have been prohibitively expensive in the past.
- zhyder 17y ago
  "Guitar Hero is a very poor comparison. As far as I'm aware, there's no way to take one of these toys and create any kind of original music with it" Actually the latest version of Guitar Hero ('World Tour') does include the ability to record, edit & share. It's very limited of course.
  - anigbrowl 17y ago
    Egad. I wonder how much music they expect one to make with 4 buttons...but I'll look into it. Thanks for the correction.

anigbrowl 17y ago

Not to disagree with your substantive point, but I think Guitar Hero is a very poor comparison. As far as I'm aware, there's no way to take one of these toys and create any kind of original music with it, other than by smashing it into something and recording the resulting noise. A better comparison would be instruments for making (mostly) electronic music, such as synthesizers, samplers, and sequencers. These things too can become arbitrarily complex within their specific domains (Csound being a prime example), but most of the innovation is devoted to making it easier for the mediocre player to obtain interesting musical results, at the expense of some flexibility or authenticity. This can aid learning to some degree, and substantially democratizes toolsets - for example, although I have neither the space nor the cash to buy a piano, I have access to such good emulations that it doesn't matter. Of greater importance than either of these are the innovative possibilities for creating new kinds of music that are not achievable by conventional means - even if you dislike electronic music, you probably enjoy the contributions from of audio technology to film soundtracks. You are quite right that electronic emulations will not and should not displace real instruments like guitars, trumpets, drums etc., no matter what their level of sophistication. The same is true is of domain-specific modeling tools and pure programming. However, I submit that within their limitations, such tools have the potential to vastly increase overall productivity. And as I've observed before, patch-based 'analog computers' have a trick or two up their sleeve yet: now that cheap digital von Neumann computers are a commodity, people are doing interesting and usual things with the emulated versions that would have been prohibitively expensive in the past.

zhyder 17y ago
"Guitar Hero is a very poor comparison. As far as I'm aware, there's no way to take one of these toys and create any kind of original music with it" Actually the latest version of Guitar Hero ('World Tour') does include the ability to record, edit & share. It's very limited of course.
- anigbrowl 17y ago
  Egad. I wonder how much music they expect one to make with 4 buttons...but I'll look into it. Thanks for the correction.