Julian Leviston <[email protected]> wrote: > To restate my point, simply: programming computers is not as easy as using > them, and using them is not even as easy or useful as it could be. >
Don't get me wrong - I completely understand your intuition. I have it too. But beware! Intuition weighs heavy with prejudices unique to the immediate present. Try to formalize what you're saying - in particular: what is "programming", and what is "using"? I propose: "using" a computer means inputting some data for it to interpret. One kind of data are "incomplete instructions" meant to be mixed with further input at a later point: those are programs. As we move forward, we'll keep finding better ways of structuring these "incomplete" instructions in a way that makes them both "easy" to complete (the way things are "easy" to use), and also are general in their purpose (what we intuit now as "programming"). To reiterate - I'm not saying there's no difference between "programming" and "using", I'm saying the difference is a temporary artifact unique to our present state of affairs.
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