What the fark is "Chandler"?

Way to go: Post the excerpt before the review.

Sigh.

This little excerpt hits on one of the biggest problems in programming today---programming languages are horrible. The languages in current use are way closer to how computers "think" than to how humans do (even though they are much better than they used to be).

It takes years to become profficient in the major languages, and so it is specialists who do the programming. Unfortunately, it is also specialists (of a very different kind) who need to use the completed programs. The specialists of one field (say Doctors, Lawyers, airplane mechanics) have very precise requirements and very precise terminology for what they do, and cannot demonstrate the nuances of their field to other specialists (the programmers). This is why software is always late, buggy, expensive, etc.

Until we can make programming languages that non-programmer specialists can use to create interesting things in their own field, we are going to have the same old tired complaints about bugs, quality, and geeky programmers.

Try COBOL.

It is a lot easier for humans to make the bridge to computer speak than vice versa. The learning curve for a language isn't as steep as you are claiming, what is steep is the learning curve for an environment. Modern operating systems are extremely complex, and the attempts to make it simple for the user makes it complex for the programmer.

COBOL was a great language for its time. It made programming accessible to the financial field in the 60s and 70s. It served its purpose well and many accountants stock brokers were able to get their work done must faster and better using it.

But, there are two issues with it.

First, the language was designed around the original machines it was supposed to run on (and not the other way around). Therefore, as computers changed, COBOL became more and more outdated. Languages need to be designed for the people that use it, so they can easily express their intentions to the computer.

Second, it was great at number crunching, but that was it. Payroll, accounting, and all that other back-end stuff that used to take people months to do by hand. Try applying it to anything that we really want to do now (for the web or for mobiles) and it's a horrible mismatch.

Unfortunately, we are still stuck with the language, with some 180 billion lines of it floating around powering the world's financial systems, running our banks.

When I worked on Wall Street a few years ago, there were 3 floors of my building devoted only to COBOL programmers. All gray-haired and all about to retire. Knowledge of how our banks actually work lies with them. When they're gone (and they will be soon), the banking system will still calculate interest and print statements and do payroll, but no one will know how it works.

Did you know about this movie? Is there some sort of copyright violation?

http://www.leenap.com/dreaming/cast.htm

Until we can make programming languages that non-programmer specialists can use to create interesting things in their own field, we are going to have the same old tired complaints about bugs, quality, and geeky programmers.

And there you see the reason it won't happen. What does "orthogonal" mean to a CAD person? Probably something very different to a quantum chemist. What does the word "pointer" mean to an economist? Probably something very different from a programmer.

There is no way to get all of the various fields to agree on a common terminology and concept-space, hence there is no way for a single programming language (or even less than a dozen languages) to provide the conceptual tools for non-programmers to get their jobs done. Hell, even supercomputer programmers disagree with every other kind of programmer about what the word "code" means (they say "code" to mean "code" and "codes" to mean "programs"). Just 8 years ago HTML was called "programming" by many people in "IT".

OTOH, there are plenty of programming tools that make conceptual modeling easier. Lisp is decent but current implementations have performance problems on large datasets. Modern C++ isn't so bad either. Unfortunately becoming fluent in the major programming languages is considered too difficult for everyone to do. However, I think that once people come to expect programming tools to come with every PC that will change. In thirty years it will be expected that everyone can write simple programs to get their jobs done, much as we expect every citizen now to be literate, able to drive a car, and familiar enough with civil law and finances to sign simple legally-binding contracts.

I remember fondly the many hours I spent writing personally useful programs in BASIC on my Apple II and the disappointment I felt when I realized that my "upgrade" to a PC running Windows 95 had no easy access to personal programming. I'm no enthusiast about programming for its own sake and am unwilling to make the investment in time and effort that I have seen my son, a computer science major and programming prodigy, make to master the arcane logic involved.

I agree with No Name Given that a readily accessible, intuitively simple programming language would be popular with those who wish to dabble in this field and provide the much-needed gateway for the young people who will eventually be our next generation of programmers.

"Names, titles, and short phrases or expressions are not subject to copyright protection."

~ Library of Congress Copyright Office

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ34.html

A popular book title is Vital Signs, ( Vital Signs, by Fitz Hugh Mullan, Vital Signs, by Robin Cook, Vital Signs, by Dennis Breo, ...)

and i didn't even have an apple, just a PC with Qbasic. i could make simple games for my kids and compose simple tunes - try that with a "modern" computer! why is this? i think it stems from the contempt in which non-specialists are held. but maybe i'm wrong; if there's a market, supposedly there'll be products - sad, if that's the case.