More General posts
September 18, 2002
Programming for the masses?

Some thoughts from Dan Bricklin, the co-creator of VisiCalc, about why regular people don't routinely program. Why Johnny can't program

I found this via LtU where there is already an interesting discussion.

One reason I'm interested in this is because I've worked for companies developing various products where part of the pitch was that you didn't have to be a programmer to develop using the product. The range of success in actually implementing this was none to some. To use these "end user" or "you don't have to be a programmer" systems I've seen the user still has to understand the concepts of variables standing for values, conditions, and loops, among others.

So, is it possible to remove these requirements, or are they fundamental, and are there users who are unable to understand them? Is there a portion of the population who will never be able to program, or is that just elitest thinking and it's matter of presenting the information correctly? On the other hand as you make it easier and easier does it cease to be programming? Is "programming" a VCR really programming.

Posted by Alex at September 18, 2002 07:09 PM
Comments
Yes, programming a VCR is programming under the broad definition of "writing instructions for a machine". Under the strictist definition of "writing instructions for a machine in the machine's language", well, then only Assembly language programming is programming, isn't it. All these third and fourth generations languages are somewhere in between. Personally I don't think there is much difference, conceptually, in writing instructions for a machine or a person. One must be able to write commands, write conditional statements, define results of actions taken, and provide error handling if none of the choices can be applied to a situation. I don't divide the world between programmers and non-programmers, but between thinkers and non-thinkers. Whether writing in C or English, the writer must think things through before trying to do it. Many people can't or won't do this. They will never be programmers, in any language. They'll never be writers either. Non-thinkers can't follow instructions; why should we expect them to be able to write them? Posted by: M Sinclair Stevens on September 19, 2002 09:23 AM
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