Charles Simonyi leaves Microsoft

tibbetts writes "The New York Times reports (printable version) (Free blah di blah) that Charles Simonyi, the former chief architect at Microsoft and creator of Bravo, a text-editing program that later became Microsoft Word, has left the company to form his own startup. The focus of his new company is to "simplify programming by representing programs in ways other than in the text syntax of conventional programming languages," which is highly ironic in light of his infamous Hungarian Notation style of naming variables. Perhaps more amazingly, 'Mr. Simonyi has left Microsoft with the right to use the intellectual property he developed and patented while working there.'"

Comments

Convenience breeds weakness....

[Nephroth]

Sure the ability to 'draw' a program sounds lucrative ... but lets look at VB a moment. I've programmed in VB, it is an incredibly slow language that is weak and limited in scope. Sure it works for writing up a quickie program that you don't want to do the C++ for and don't care about speed or efficiency.

Whenever you make programming easier you narrow its scope and limit its functionality, that's how it's been forever. Sure C is a lot easier than machine code, however with machine code you can do whatever you want with the CPU. BASIC is easier than C but you can do about jack squat with it. VB is a lot easier than C++ but it is slow, only works on windows, and is limited in what it can do with the computer (IE, you can stick a bit of assembly in it to do a special task.)

Personally, I think making programming easier for laymen is a BAD thing. We already have enough sKript Kiddies claiming they are '1337 h4XX0r' enough of them already know how to steal VB code we don't need to open the door for '1337 pr0gr4mm3rz' too.

Re:MS Word Competitor in the works?

[Tet]

And a word on hungarian notation. It makes me want to puke. Your variables should be named well enough that it shouldn't need extra letters to tell you the type.

More to the point, the compiler will tell you when you've got the type wrong anyway. Hungarian notation is completely unnecessary, and (IMHO, of course) those who claim it makes for easier reading need their heads examined. It serves no purpose, and for that reason alone, shouldn't be used...