Comment by jimmaswell | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jimmaswell | Hacker News Reader

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>The main source of the pain is, to me, is that we're still working strictly with textual representations of non-textual concepts and logic, no matter how those concepts might better be rendered.

I can't see any issue with representing logic abstractly with symbols. It's the same for calculus. Of course the ideas we're representing aren't actually the things we use to represent them, the same as written communication.

Non-textual programming has been explored to some degree, such as Scratch, but it's not seen as much of a useful thing.

>Instead of solving the problem, we're stuck down describing actions and formulas to the machinery. No IDE does anything to actually address that problem.

Describing actions and formulas to a machine in order to make it do something useful is pretty much the definition of programming. IDEs make it a more convenient process.

Unless you want to directly transplant the ideas out of your neural paths into the computer, maybe some AI computer in the future based on a human brain, this is how it's going to be.

> I can't see any issue with representing logic abstractly with symbols.

That's the problem: text isn't abstract enough. So we put some of the text into little blobs that have names (other methods), and use those names instead, and we call that "abstraction," but black-box abstraction doesn't help us see. The symbols in calculus, by contrast, are symbols that help you see. The OA is calling for abstractions over operating a computer that help us see.

Agree. There is must be more abstract way to present ideas than text. In this way, programs are easier to understand and modification, and have less errors and bugs.

I am suspicious. I think it would certainly be easier in some ways for rank beginners- it would make spelling errors and certain classes of syntax errors impossible- but those aren't really the bugs that cause experienced programmers grief. It's generally subtly bad logic, which is more about how people are terrible. Plus, we already know how to create computer languages that largely avoid those problems.

Written language is wonderful in many respects, and I sometimes thing people discount these things out of familiarity. Keyboards too- you can do things very quickly and very precisely with keyboards. Those things matter for your sense of productivity and satisfaction.

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