alexnorth

That's a good question. I don't have a personal answer yet, though I do like your mechanic example.

But to your last point: I chose the word "coding" so as to refer specifically to the linear textual formal representation we use today. People will keep designing complex logical systems - indeed, I hope more people will become more capable of doing so, and I think better tools will help.

But we have some such better tools! E.g. Chrome's developer tools let you edit CSS properties and the document structure live, seeing results instantly. It's fantastically more efficient that coding and refreshing the page. Tools that better match the problem domain matter so much precisely because of the domain complexities like overflowing and arbitrary data.

It's a small step. I can easily imagine bigger ones.

I agree with all the things you say are hard: understanding computation, encoding complex requirements, handling edge cases; but typing code into an editor and then re-running your application doesn't provide much support for making them easier. Better tools could help programmers and non-programmers alike work with that complexity much more effectively.

I'm on it. Meanwhile, cache is http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qjCebmD...