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Removing Software Complexity
t482 writes "Charles Simonyi (ex Xerox Parc & Microsoft ) says that Software "has become a field where we focus on incremental improvements in processes. That course is futile, because it can never solve the problem of human imperfection."
Even as software collapses under the weight of its own complexity, we've barely begun to exploit its potential to solve problems. The challenge, Simonyi believes, is to find a way to write programs that both programmers and users can actually read and comprehend. Simonyi's solution? To create programming tools that are so simple and powerful that the software nearly writes itself.
"Software should be as easy to edit as a PowerPoint presentation," Simonyi asserts."
Will write the programming tools? Seems to me Simonyi's not talking about a replacement for modern programming, but an incremental advancement over say AppleScript or Hypercard. More powerful userland tools will not completely replace programming: someone will need to write the components. Or is he thinking that all the components will be in the OS, and thus third party programmers could be eliminated and the OS vendor and the user would be the only parts of the transaction?
"The problem is programmers are not known for their empathy for users"
Oh, I don't know...my customers and I often share amusing stories of stuff that's Blue screened just before you meant to save it. If you mean that some Programmers consider themselves godlike because of years of hubris and the certain knowledge that you couldn't be found out if you cloaked as much as you could in jargon, then you might have a point.
The customer knows what they want, and they'll express it to you in their terms; you have to translate their ideas into something workable, which can be a ballache, but if you've started from a position of billable hours rather than a fixed cost, you're already ahead of the game simply because you can work on milestones rather than having to constantly rehash.
The idea of having a high-level language that 'anyone' can use has largely already happened with HTML. As a result we have some outrageously bad HTML out there because of the complete lack of understanding of abstraction. Put simply, Decamino wouldn't look through Galileo's telescope because he _knew_ that Galileo is wrong; the paradigm that allowed for the earth to move out of the center of the universe hadn't yet come to pass.
Although OO is currently viewed with some suspicion because it may not be the best way to do _everything_, everyone involved in commercial programming has at least started to view things in the terms of objects; that concept may take a while to filter down to a public that thinks animated cursors on the web are the dog's back wheels, or seem surprised when you have to keep AV software updated.
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.
No, VB and Access made it possible for untrained people (and naive managers) to THINK (quite incorrectly) that they could write software and DB apps.
Exactly.
There is no silver bullet for making software easy, and this has been known for decades.
Cobol, for instance, was supposed to be English-like, and hence understandable and programmable by non-programmers. Other English-like programming languages have made the same claim. Wrong every time on all counts.
The problem is that specifying arbitrary algorithms requires extreme precision, unambiguity, and tedious detail far beyond anything the average person is even interested in attempting, let alone capable of. It doesn't particularly matter which language or tool is offered, what matters most is the person's abilities (and willingness!) to be excruciatingly detailed and logical and patient.
This has been studied to death, but hope springs eternal...
Another kind of lack of silver bullet are declarative languages...it's vastly easier to declare what is needed than it is to specify procedurally how to achieve the goal. However, no one has ever invented a Turing complete declarative language, and there is good reason to think that such a thing is impossible (infinite potential problem domains).
Simonyi is a very intelligent and experienced guy, so he likely knows this. I hope he does; he should. So I like to interpret what he's saying as a grandiose way to say that he's hoping to make a big improvement in the art of programming -- there certainly is huge room for improvement.
But if he literally means he hopes to make all programming as easy as making powerpoint slides, then he is a fool or a liar (but he might still produce some cool tools).
(Making really cool graphics for the backgrounds of powerpoint slides is an art, BTW ;-)
Professional Wild-Eyed Visionary