Check out "Smallstar" by Dan Halbert at Xerox PARC (written up in a PARC
"bluebook")
Cheers,
Alan
________________________________
From: John Carlson <[email protected]>
To: Fundamentals of New Computing <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, September 9, 2013 3:47 PM
Subject: Re: [fonc] Software Crisis (was Re: Final STEP progress report
abandoned?)
One thing you can do is create a bunch of named widgets that work together with
copy and paste. As long as you can do type safety, and can appropriately deal
with variable explosion/collapsing. You'll probably want to create very small
functions, which can also be stored in widgets (lambdas). Widgets will show up
when their scope is entered, or you could have an inspect mode.
On Sep 9, 2013 5:11 PM, "David Barbour" <[email protected]> wrote:
I like Paul's idea here - form a "pit of success" even for people who tend to
copy-paste.
>
>
>I'm very interested in unifying PL with HCI/UI such that actions like
>copy-paste actually have formal meaning. If you copy a time-varying field from
>a UI form, maybe you can paste it as a signal into a software agent. Similarly
>with buttons becoming capabilities. (Really, if we can use a form, it should
>be easy to program something to use it for us. And vice versa.) All UI actions
>can be 'acts of programming', if we find the right way to formalize it. I
>think the trick, then, is to turn the UI into a good PL.
>
>
>To make copy-and-paste code more robust, what can we do?
>
>
>Can we make our code more adaptive? Able to introspect its environment?
>
>
>Can we reduce the number of environmental dependencies? Control namespace
>entanglement? Could we make it easier to grab all the dependencies for code
>when we copy it?
>
>Can we make it more provable?
>
>
>And conversely, can we provide IDEs that can help the "kids" understand the
>code they take - visualize and graph its behavior, see how it integrates with
>its environment, etc? I think there's a lot we can do. Most of my thoughts
>center on language design and IDE design, but there may also be social avenues
>- perhaps wiki-based IDEs, or Gist-like repositories that also make it easy to
>interactively explore and understand code before using it.
>
>
>
>On Sun, Sep 8, 2013 at 10:33 AM, Paul Homer <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>>These days, the "kids" do a quick google, then just copy&paste the results
>>into the code base, mostly unaware of what the underlying 'magic'
>>instructions actually do. So example code is possibly a bad thing?
>>
>>But even if that's true, we've let the genie out of the bottle and he is't
>>going back in. To fix the quality of software, for example, we can't just ban
>>all cut&paste-able web pages.
>>
>>The alternate route out of the problem is to exploit these types of human
>>deficiencies. If some programmers just want to cut&paste, then perhaps all we
>>can do is too just make sure that what they are using is high enough quality.
>>If someday they want more depth, then it should be available in easily
>>digestible forms, even if few will ever travel that route.
>>
>>If most people really don't want to think deeply about about their problems,
>>then I think that the best we can do is ensure that their hasty decisions are
>>based on as accurate knowledge as possible. It's far better than them just
>>flipping a coin. In a sense it moves up our decision making to a higher level
>>of abstraction. Some people lose the 'why' of the decision, but their
>>underlying choice ultimately is superior, and the 'why' can still be found by
>>doing digging into the data. In a way, isn't that what we've already done
>>with micro-code, chips and assembler? Or machinery? Gradually we move up
>>towards broader problems...
>>
>>
>>>
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>
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