Is newer better?

Hi Clem,

I have been involved with computers for a bit longer than you, but you bring up interesting points.

For most applications, the computer advance has produced a lot of amazing gadgets that help many people everyday.

One place I find still lagging is having a simple and intuitive way to program the computer to do what I want.

After all, typing in C code was what I did over forty years ago.  Clearly we can do better.

The same goes for testing software and systems.  Are we still constrained to doing all of the little steps our self?

The same interface that could create the software should easily be able to put only good software into the plan.

After all, how many times do we need to define a pin to a LED and then write the code for using it?

I would say that the hardware has matured much better than the software.  Mostly from the insane language wars.  It just does not matter which is best.  All that matters is that a novice user has the tools to define an idea and have code written so that the device can implement the function.

Just a thought.

DAB

Hi Clem,

I have been involved with computers for a bit longer than you, but you bring up interesting points.

For most applications, the computer advance has produced a lot of amazing gadgets that help many people everyday.

One place I find still lagging is having a simple and intuitive way to program the computer to do what I want.

After all, typing in C code was what I did over forty years ago.  Clearly we can do better.

The same goes for testing software and systems.  Are we still constrained to doing all of the little steps our self?

The same interface that could create the software should easily be able to put only good software into the plan.

After all, how many times do we need to define a pin to a LED and then write the code for using it?

I would say that the hardware has matured much better than the software.  Mostly from the insane language wars.  It just does not matter which is best.  All that matters is that a novice user has the tools to define an idea and have code written so that the device can implement the function.

Just a thought.

DAB

DAB wrote:

 

One place I find still lagging is having a simple and intuitive way to program the computer to do what I want.

After all, typing in C code was what I did over forty years ago.  Clearly we can do better.

 

...

 

I would say that the hardware has matured much better than the software.  Mostly from the insane language wars.  It just does not matter which is best.  All that matters is that a novice user has the tools to define an idea and have code written so that the device can implement the function.

At some point you have to tell the hardware what to do, and that involves some kind of language.  There are graphical languages such as the one used by CodeBug, but from what little I've seen of CodeBug it seems like you can do some simple things very nicely, but when you want to do more sophisticated things you discover the limitations of the graphical language very quickly.

IMO there is no such thing as a "best language".  What's best for one application may be terrible for another.  What's best for one person may be terrible for someone else.  Chacun a son goût.  I find some features of C like its expression syntax to be excellent.  I find other features like its control structures to be ugly, especially things like needing a break statement after each case.  My solution was to create my own languages.  I now use my GalaxC language for almost all my work.  It fits the way I think and express myself.  But this is a personal decision.

Getting back to Clem's "Is Newer Better" question, I would like to note how horribly complex device-level programming has become over the decades I've been doing this.  The first machine for which I did device-level programming was the PDP-11.  The PDP-11 Peripherals Handbook described the device registers for all DEC peripherals that could interface to a PDP-11.  It had a chapter called "Programming" which described how to write typical assembly-language programs to talk to peripherals, using both busy loops and interrupts.  The chapter was 8 pages long.

If you want to device-level programming for Linux or Windows you have to read and understand huge manuals.  You can avoid this by doing "bare metal" programming on microprocessors and microcontrollers, and some of them are pretty easy to grok.  Others require you to find your way through a 2000-page technical reference manual, which may or may not be well-written.

Most of this complexity is because it's easier to slap together complex systems instead of designing something clean and simple.  As CAR Hoare said: "There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult."