[geeks] Software Bloat

[Joshua D Boyd]

On Mon, Dec 17, 2001 at 05:13:21PM -0500, Greg A. Woods wrote:
> [ On Monday, December 17, 2001 at 19:19:47 (+0000), David Cantrell wrote: ]
> > Subject: Re: [geeks] Software Bloat
> >
> > I don't think it matters too much.  To a non-programmer - like my parents,
> > or, I imagine, Joshua's - then python, guile, lisp, ruby, smalltalk, tcl,
> > perl, vb, and any of the other scripting languages, are all equally alien.
> > So what if perl lets you get closer to an English sentence, or if ruby is
> > more orthogonal, or if smalltalk lets you Do More With Less.
> 
> That doesn't quite explain why even a horribly designed language
> (language design-wise) has gained so much popularity and use even by
> non-programmers (and of course I speak of M$ VisualBasic).  :-)
> 
> Literally millions of non-programmers do commonly write quite successful
> VB programs and are in effect successful amateur programmers even though
> they might not admit it themselves.

I think it has to do with the whole environment thing.  Just imagine being able
to throw programs together as easily with Python.

I don't know why delphi didn't do better.  Maybe it had something to do with 
people not wanting to have to type :=.
 
> I do know that my sister, who had a bit of what passes for computer
> education in a public school somewhat after 1984 in one of the best
> education systems in the world (Saskatchewan) is in effect afraid to try
> to learn more about how computers work and how to make them do what she
> wants them to do (though no doubt now that she's a mother she'll have
> some incentive to go further).  She certainly has the math and logic
> skills, but hasn't had the incentive to learn anything about
> programming.  (my being 3000 miles away from her probably doesn't help! :-)

Sigh.  I've been having trouble convincing my sister to consider programming.
Heck, I'm having a hard time convincing her to consider web design for fun
and profit.
 
-- 
Joshua D. Boyd