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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."
That little invention really reflects how stupid this guy is. So much for abstraction when all your variables have their name encoded with their concrete representation. God help you if you want to change the type of your var. It global search and replace for you.
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I don't know if that necessarily has to be the case. Back in the old 8 bit CP/M days I got my introduction to Forth through an application named KAMAS, which stood for Knowledge And Mind Amplification System. Lofty sounding name aside, KAMAS was really an outlining tool. A very good one at that. A few years later after the PC and DOS had taken over a whole slew of these outlining tool programs appeared and all claimed the ability to revolutionize the way you worked with information. For the most part, this was all bunk but in a way KAMAS almost stood up to its self-aggrandized promotion.
What made KAMAS different, IMHO, was that it was based on a FORTH like language that was at the core of the product and its author (Adam Trent) left that programmability exposed. Yet, he was able to organize the program in such a way that the average user didn't have to interact with the language at all or even know it was there if they didn't want to. Heck, you didn't even have to use it as an outliner -- if you wanted it could just act as a simple To Do list.
As the owners' manual stated, KAMAS was arranged in rings,like a Venn diagram, with the outliner at the outermost ring. However, if the user wanted they could issue a command that would expose the next inner layer ofr complexity and do simple programming tasks on their outlines. Because of its' Forth heritage, the programming was interactive and could easily be undone? Screw up a word definition? Just tell the interpreter to FORGET it.
For the true geek crowd, another word could be issued (only while inside the programming layer) that would then expose the inner-most layer and open up access to the all the words defined. At this point, the user/prorammer would have access to basically a full Forth programming environment and actually change or extend the outliner tool by rewriting it! At this point, if one wished to devote the time to learning how to program in a stack based threaded interpreted environment, your computer was wide open to you. It was like have the keys to the gates of heaven laid at your feet.
Later on, when I started playing around with Forth proper, I was still impressed with what KAMAS's author (whatever became of Adam Trent anyway?) had done and felt that this managing of complexity was the true power of Forth based systems. However, even I have to admit that Forth is far from ideal given its' RPN and stack based roots -- at least for Joe Everyuser. More time passed and I discovered Smalltalk and Alan Kay and his idedas for Dynabook and lately, Squeak.
Smalltalk, Squeak and OOP share with KAMAS the idea of bringing the power of the computer to leverage the mind to the everyday user. And, as with KAMAS and Forth too, they are able to prevent a useful, simplified environment at the surface, but still making the power and complexity available to those who want to use it.
So, in short, I think you're wrong here. One does not have to lose the ability to gain low level access in order to mask complexity from the average user. What I do question after all these years is how many users will actually want access to the power hidden at the core of systems such as Squeak and KAMAS before it? I mean, come on, I live in a country (US) where a sizeable portion of the population can't identify the Pacific ocean on a map! I think its likely that in the end we'll end up with just about the same mix of truly technical users to clueless lusers that we have now.
As depressing as that may be, and the thought does depress me, I still think it's important to implement Charles Simonyi's ideas (as well as Alan Kay's and Doug Englebart's and Steve Wozniak's and all the others who believe that the computer can serve as a tool to liberate people). If only for the sake of providing a migration path for people to make that crossing from clueless luser to someone who is able to effectively use the computer as a "Knowledge and Mind Amplification Tool."