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Comment by murukesh_s | Hacker News Reader

Coding with text is easy, but then why we there is a gap between getting a prototype/design done and the actual implementation? Text based coding is certainly more efficient in representing logic in a concise way, but the current set of frameworks and tooling on text based environments requires an exhorbitant amount of learning to produce a working application(e.g React), that's where the rapid application development tools like bubble comes in. In my opinion a combination of text and GUI should work together to provide the best possible efficiency for developers and other members of a team..

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> why we there is a gap between getting a prototype/design done and the actual implementation?

I think this has rather psychological reasons. There is a good book from Seth Godin called 'The Dip' which deals with the problem why most are fast in prototyping but not able to transform a prototype to an actual implementation ('to stick to the end'). However, I think there is nothing wrong with a prototype to fully-implement rate of 100 to 1. Prototyping is how people learn as well.

Moreover, I am not saying that GUIs are per se bad. If I create vector-based graphics I need a GUI, when I browse the web I prefer HTML/CSS and a GUI's smooth scrolling over a text-based Lynx. Some programming languages like Java are better with GUI-IDEs but my main point was another one: That too much GUI in your daily life creates an unnecessary intimidation towards programming (if you are not a programmer yet).

That's could be because we are accustomed to coding through text. Imagine asking a designer to use code for vector editing?

> Text based coding is certainly more efficient in representing logic in a concise way, but the current set of frameworks and tooling on text based environments requires an exhorbitant amount of learning to produce a working application(e.g React)

That's a problem with this particular set of tooling then. In the past we've had drag'n'drop tools like visual basic which made rapid prototyping easy and you'd use the same tools for the final version. On the text side you've got similar tools like Qt and Gtk which allow you to slap together a prototype quickly and then use them for the final application. I always assumed react was quite similar.

> Coding with text is easy, but then why we there is a gap between getting a prototype/design done and the actual implementation?

The solution for this is simple, really: simply declare the prototype the working implementation, and put devs on the hook for maintaining it.

Don't see why you are being down voted. That always seems to end up happening.

By prototype, I meant static prototype or the visual design in tools like Balsamiq.

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