Re: Small time coding [Was: Re: About Visual Basic [Was: Industryversus academia]]

[Daniel Weinreb <address@hidden>]

Michael Vanier wrote:

> The notion of "end-user
>programming" is talked about a lot in educational circles.  The implication
>is that such coding can be done by "mere mortals" and not "coding gods",
>which implies (but rarely states outright) that it requires neither a deep
>knowledge of algorithms or of program design (you know, those things that
>make programming *actually interesting* ;-)). 
>
I think most of the people programming in VB don't want programming to 
be "really interesting"
any more than I want  my toaster to be "really interesting".  I want my 
toaster to get the job
done and I do not want to hear about exciting new tungesten alloys in 
the heating wires nor
do I want to subscribe to Toaster Today magazine.

>The reason I think so many of us are so interested in programming languages
>is that we want languages that make it easier to do the hard stuff:
>designing complex algorithms and designing, extending and maintaining
>complex programs.  GUI-based programming environments aren't going to solve
>these problems.  In fact, for algorithms at least I would argue that
>text-based languages are superior. 
>
Exactly. The "us" of whom you speak is not who VB is targeted at.