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Comment by haspok | Hacker News Reader

It always amazed me that during their ~10 years of existence they never actually produced anything visible, other than demos. I remember I had been very excited about their "intentional" approach, even though so many years later I tend to think that it is actually an evolutionary dead-end (anyone remembers 4GL and 5GL languages? The late 90s when CASE tools and visual IDEs like Delphi were all the rage?). There is no silver bullet.

I'd love to be proven wrong, though, and hope to see some of the "intentional" stuff in any real software product.

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I worked there for about a year, there were a number of contracts fulfilled using the workbench and associated technology (mostly NDA). At some point there was a pivot to a graphics-heavy reinterpretation of the core tech, which was pretty secretive and so didn't get a lot of press.

My project didn't use the core 'intentional' tech and we got spun off into an atrociously mismanaged, doomed sub-startup, so don't ask me too much about the intentsoft tech itself (though I can probably give rough answers for any high level stuff if you're curious).

I worked at Intentsoft in its earlier days (2006-2011) and left just as it was really starting to seriously staff up. I look at the pictures of the office these days and it's so surreal to me to see the absurd growth of what had stayed a small team for a really long time.

Is the Pole Position cabinet still there? Did anyone ever fix the monitor? I miss that thing.

They actually moved down the street from that original office about 2 and change years ago. This is around when I left, coincidentally, so it's hard to remember which cabinets made the trip or not.

Hey is this the intentsoft alumni thread? :)

Congrats to everyone there!

>even though so many years later I tend to think that it is actually an evolutionary dead-end (anyone remembers 4GL and 5GL languages?

Many, fondly. Where they a "evolutionary dead-end" or just commercial, and thus less likely to succeed in an open source world?

Work on Intentional Programming started at Microsoft Research in the 90s. Simonyi has been on this path for 20+ years.

Did the Intentional website have any info on their work before the acquisition? There's nothing there now.

I interviewed for the Intentional Programming group at Microsoft back in 1993! Their demo back then was amazing. I thought they'd have something out within a few years, and 24 years later I don't think anything commercial has come of it.

Like a lot of basic research, it's often others who sucseed at commercializing the innovation. And domain-specific-languages are an important tool today.

The late 90s when CASE tools and visual IDEs like Delphi were all the rage?). There is no silver bullet.

You seem to imply that Delphi was a fad that fell short of what it promised. On the contrary, it was incredibly productive. The reasons it has become a niche product have nothing to do with the validity of its features.

So if you are wondering why IS hasn't some product to show, it's not because the ideas are wrong, it's because tools are a very difficult area where execution is more important and readiness is all.

I suspect RAD/4GL will come back into fashion once someone gets a web version of it right. The current crop of tools aren't quite there, as they don't let you work outside the hard rails.

Google's "app maker" looks pretty close, but with issues around per user cost for some use cases. It does support freeform code, both client and server side, so no hard rails https://developers.google.com/appmaker/

The question about programming tools is fascinating. There isn't a minimal consensus about its evolution.

My two cents is it's more about usability than anything else.

CSS Flexbox could bring RAD back to the web. Flexbox is a breath of fresh air after dealing with standard CSS layout 'tricks'.

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