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1. Andrew (bookseller era) (ajroach42@retro.social)'s status on Monday, 16-May-2022 16:20:28 UTC Andrew (bookseller era)

   It is absurd that there are not simpler ways for non-programmers to make computers do what they want.

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   • Andrew (bookseller era) (ajroach42@retro.social)'s status on Monday, 16-May-2022 16:21:47 UTC Andrew (bookseller era)

     in reply to

     I used to go off about hypercard a lot.

     It was a tool, scarcely more complicated than Powerpoint, that enabled anyone who chose to to make programs that do things.

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   • Andrew (bookseller era) (ajroach42@retro.social)'s status on Monday, 16-May-2022 16:21:47 UTC Andrew (bookseller era)

     in reply to

     Today, I know a lot of business people who do the kinds of things I would write software for using Excel or Access and macros.

     But it's mostly boring business stuff.

     My mom used to weave batch files and sidekick databases in to something resembling a computer program.

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   • Andrew (bookseller era) (ajroach42@retro.social)'s status on Monday, 16-May-2022 16:25:37 UTC Andrew (bookseller era)

     in reply to

     In the 80s, my aunt (a child) and my grandmother (someone who, today, can't even effectively operate her Television) wrote a series of computer programs from which they ran my grandfather's business.

     They generated invoices and printed them, scheduled jobs, kept a list of customers, etc.

     They did it all with an Atari 8-bit computer, and the included BASIC.

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   • Andrew (bookseller era) (ajroach42@retro.social)'s status on Monday, 16-May-2022 16:40:23 UTC Andrew (bookseller era)

     in reply to

     And then there's the whole issue of GUIs.

     I have never written a graphical application using a UI framework.

     I've started some, but working with UI frameworks sucks. I can't imagine starting with one for my first application.

     I've done web UIs for years, and they aren't *easy* but they're way easier than working with modern UI frameworks.

     Which, I guess, is why Electron is so popular.

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   • Andrew (bookseller era) (ajroach42@retro.social)'s status on Monday, 16-May-2022 16:40:24 UTC Andrew (bookseller era)

     in reply to

     Part of the problem is one of approachability.

     BASIC still works, you know? I wrote programs in FreeBASIC as a kid.

     Python is out there, and is fairly easy to get started with, and there are plenty of good guides and tutorials.

     But they are not *approachable* you know?

   • Andrew (bookseller era) (ajroach42@retro.social)'s status on Monday, 16-May-2022 16:41:26 UTC Andrew (bookseller era)

     in reply to

     • A.C. Tupper

     @ACTupper it's a great introduction to programming.

     It is not a good tool for empowering non-programmers.

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   • Andrew (bookseller era) (ajroach42@retro.social)'s status on Monday, 16-May-2022 16:41:32 UTC Andrew (bookseller era)

     in reply to

     There can be a better way.

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   • A.C. Tupper (actupper@scicomm.xyz)'s status on Monday, 16-May-2022 16:41:32 UTC A.C. Tupper

     in reply to

     @ajroach42 What are your thoughts on Scratch? While I've never tinkered with it, it seems like it's built with accessibility in mind.

   • rolltime (rolltime@freeradical.zone)'s status on Monday, 16-May-2022 16:42:44 UTC rolltime

     in reply to

     • A.C. Tupper

     @ajroach42 @ACTupper I think the problem with Scratch is that it’s self-contained. You can’t link external information and actions to it, which makes it effectively useless for a lot of the tasks non-programmers want to achieve.

     I actually really like tools like IFTTT and Zapier. I was super impressed with zapier in particular when I tried it, it’s basically iOS shortcuts for the internet, with a surprising amount of power. A free tool like that would be awesome.

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   • Andrew (bookseller era) (ajroach42@retro.social)'s status on Monday, 16-May-2022 16:43:56 UTC Andrew (bookseller era)

     in reply to

     • rolltime
     • A.C. Tupper

     @rolltime @ACTupper Zapier is neat. Macros for the internet.

     I wish more desktop applications supported a basic macro workflow.

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   • Andrew (bookseller era) (ajroach42@retro.social)'s status on Monday, 16-May-2022 16:46:40 UTC Andrew (bookseller era)

     in reply to

     Smartphones and tablets are here to stay. GUIs are a part of life.

     The solution isn't to push users back to the command line. The solution must be to bring composability to the graphical environment.

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   • Nate Cull (natecull@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 16-May-2022 16:49:14 UTC Nate Cull

     in reply to

     @ajroach42

     "The solution isn't to push users back to the command line. The solution must be to bring composability to the graphical environment."

     Definitely agree on this.

     I've been waiting for a "composable graphical environment" ever since the 1980s and wondering what the holdup has been! Still am!

     (because I was a kid who read Byte magazine, which talked about 1) GUIs and 2) Lisp/Smalltalk, so it seemed obvious to kid me that GUIs would be programming languages... and then they weren't)

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   • Nate Cull (natecull@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 16-May-2022 16:54:04 UTC Nate Cull

     in reply to

     • Terry Hancock

     @TerryHancock @ajroach42

     I think this would be cool too!

     The whole "Reactive" paradigm in web apps seems very much inspired by flow-based / functional-reactive programming, but I'm sure there's a much tinier programming model trying to claw its way out of the current big reactive mess.

     A node would be a function; the tricky part I think is how you nail down timing/signalling and what Elm calls "FoldT" (fold over time).

     I haven't yet seen a clear, tiny explanation of how to do this.

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   • Terry Hancock (terryhancock@mastodon.art)'s status on Monday, 16-May-2022 16:54:05 UTC Terry Hancock

     in reply to

     • Nate Cull

     @natecull @ajroach42

     I've always thought it would be pretty cool to have a GUI based on flow-programming (like the Blender node system). Where programs would be programmable nodes with defined inputs and outputs.

     It's very similar to the notion of Unix streams and pipes, but actually more flexible, since you can have more channels.

     There's a Qt library for doing this kind of design, called "Floppy", I don't know if it would apply as a GUI shell.

     https://github.com/JLuebben/Floppy

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   • Dr. Canageek (canageek@cybre.space)'s status on Monday, 16-May-2022 16:55:27 UTC Dr. Canageek

     in reply to

     @ajroach42 I hear back in Windows 3.1 you could define an entire text box with like one line or something like that. You just had to tell it what the buttons you wanted were and what they should do and the OS would do everything else for you

   • Vertigo #$FF (vertigo@hackers.town)'s status on Monday, 16-May-2022 16:55:27 UTC Vertigo #$FF

     in reply to

     • Dr. Canageek

     @Canageek @ajroach42 yes and no.

     You had an entire domain specific language which was solely dedicated to user interface control layout, called "resources". This is probably what you're thinking of.

     If you did the same thing in C, it would've taken a lot more code.

     On the other hand, the resource editor/l layout language was very constrained in what you could accomplish. It always assumed a rigidly sized window or dialog box, and so you couldn't describe responsive layouts at all. So, making something that could respond to the user resizing the window still involved a decent amount of C code to back it up.

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   • Wilhelm Fitzpatrick (rafial@hackers.town)'s status on Monday, 16-May-2022 16:58:13 UTC Wilhelm Fitzpatrick

     in reply to

     @ajroach42 boot to BASIC was an empowering idiom that has never really been recaptured in modern computing

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   • Nate Cull (natecull@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 16-May-2022 23:05:19 UTC Nate Cull

     in reply to

     • Terry Hancock
     • PulkoMandy

     @pulkomandy @TerryHancock @ajroach42

     StreamWeaver looks like exactly the sort of thing I was imagining that, eg, OS/2 or Windows NT would provide circa 1990, yes.

     I figured "well *obviously* a GUI OS wouldn't ship without a GUI Shell of some kind, smart people must be working on this"

     and imagine my shock when the smart people weren't.

     BeOS doing it shows that it's possible; the idea just didn't ever seem to get interest or buy-in or any kind of traction, even after Linux.

     Beats me why.

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   • PulkoMandy (pulkomandy@mastodon.tetaneutral.net)'s status on Monday, 16-May-2022 23:05:27 UTC PulkoMandy

     in reply to

     • Nate Cull
     • Terry Hancock

     @TerryHancock @natecull @ajroach42
     BeOS did it 20 years ago!
     https://www.goodeveca.net/beos/streamweaver.html

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   • Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅 (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Monday, 16-May-2022 23:15:07 UTC Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅

     in reply to

     • comrad 🇪🇺
     @comrad @ajroach42 That's a bit circular. Why aren't people using the command-line? Maybe because the tools they need don't offer it? Note that users in the boot-to-Basic era did use the equivalent of the command line and have since been trained not to.
     
     The idea is to provide something with the power equivalent of the command line, something that isn't a siloed environment, but that also isn't a command line.
   • comrad 🇪🇺 (comrad@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 16-May-2022 23:15:14 UTC comrad 🇪🇺

     in reply to

     @ajroach42
     What you do on the command prompt isn't usually any of the things an end user wants to do.

   • Nate :verified: (jeang3nie@social.linux.pizza)'s status on Monday, 16-May-2022 23:16:39 UTC Nate :verified:

     in reply to

     @ajroach42 one thing I thought might be a step in this direction was the plug and socket system in Xorg, which was implemented in Gtk3, whereby one process could be embedded into another window. I always felt like this had a lot more potential applications than were ever explored. Alas, it has no counterpart in Wayland.

     I do like the sound of command line style composability in a graphical environment. It sounds like a paradigm shift.

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   • Willard Goosey (goosey@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Monday, 16-May-2022 23:36:17 UTC Willard Goosey

     in reply to

     @ajroach42
     Man, ive been thinking about this since last night. I have feelings but no real ideas...

     When I had a running mac it was just a little too old for AppleScript..

     I've never done anything with a proper Smalltalk or lisp gui, or BeOS.

     I feel like the Oberon OS sort of leans towards this, but its not exactly the same thing (those ideas ended up in Plan 9's acme)

     i dunno man.

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   • ‮Andrew Cassidy (cinebox@cybre.space)'s status on Tuesday, 17-May-2022 06:33:39 UTC ‮Andrew Cassidy

     in reply to

     @ajroach42 BRING BACK HYPERCARD

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   • n8chz ⒶⒺ (n8chz@queer.party)'s status on Tuesday, 17-May-2022 06:36:31 UTC n8chz ⒶⒺ

     in reply to

     • Wilhelm Fitzpatrick

     @rafial @ajroach42 I have a HomeWorx (a set-top box for broadcast TV) that takes longer to boot that a vacuum tube TV would to warm up. It's as if the digital revolution has more than cancelled out the gains from the solid state revolution.

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   • n8chz ⒶⒺ (n8chz@queer.party)'s status on Tuesday, 17-May-2022 06:36:32 UTC n8chz ⒶⒺ

     in reply to

     • Wilhelm Fitzpatrick

     @rafial @ajroach42 Boot to anything would be the ultimate antidote to constant updates, therefore it would be seen by the business side as contempt of business model, and therefore it won't happen.

   • Wilhelm Fitzpatrick (rafial@hackers.town)'s status on Tuesday, 17-May-2022 06:39:24 UTC Wilhelm Fitzpatrick

     in reply to

     • n8chz ⒶⒺ

     @n8chz @ajroach42 lulz, the fact that my super-modern TV can crash and frequently pesters me to install software updates when all I really want is a monitor that will display what the Roku box or Chromecast streams to it is definitely not ideal.

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   • bazbt3 (bazbt3@appdot.net)'s status on Tuesday, 17-May-2022 06:57:00 UTC bazbt3

     in reply to

     • Justin Bremer

     @ajroach42 If it existed here I'd use up my lifetime ration of 1 quote toot on this thread and the reply from @jlbesq.

     The manuals for my ZX81, VIC-20 and a BBC Micro set me up for the rest of my hobby and occasional work-related life. Entering *and especially debugging* programs from badly printed magazine listings taught me another skill too. Patience. I've forgotten most of the last as I got older though. :)

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   • Andrew (bookseller era) (ajroach42@retro.social)'s status on Tuesday, 17-May-2022 18:03:49 UTC Andrew (bookseller era)

     in reply to

     • TerminalUser

     @anthk I haven't thought about TCL+TK in ages. Is it even still a thing?

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   • TerminalUser (anthk@pleroma.tilde.zone)'s status on Tuesday, 17-May-2022 18:03:49 UTC TerminalUser

     in reply to

     @ajroach42 It’s there. But in order to be minimally useful, you’ll need tcllib+tklib (huge goodie pack, big math library among others), tcl-tls, tcl-snack (audio playback) and TkIMG (used by tklib). It isn’t a big install by no means, just a few MB, and you can do a lot with that even underpowered Pentium II-III era machines.

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   • TerminalUser (anthk@pleroma.tilde.zone)'s status on Tuesday, 17-May-2022 18:03:50 UTC TerminalUser

     in reply to

     @ajroach42 TCL+TK it’s dumb easy.

   • M. Grégoire (mpjgregoire@mamot.fr)'s status on Tuesday, 17-May-2022 18:16:43 UTC M. Grégoire

     in reply to

     @ajroach42 Hypercard was great. Someone should bring it back.

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   • Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅 (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Tuesday, 17-May-2022 18:24:45 UTC Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅

     in reply to

     • Henry Edward Hardy
     @hhardy01 @ajroach42 There's intrinsic complexity and then there's accidental (or sinister, depending on your cynicism) difficulty in structuring and automating tasks.
   • Henry Edward Hardy (hhardy01@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 17-May-2022 18:24:46 UTC Henry Edward Hardy

     in reply to

     @ajroach42

     That's what programming is.

   • garish (garish@freeradical.zone)'s status on Friday, 20-May-2022 19:30:13 UTC garish

     in reply to

     @ajroach42 It is absolutely absurd, and is also a massive accessibility issue. I am learning disabled and effectively can’t understand coding, but I would also benefit massively from being able to create my own utilities because of the unique way my brain engages with information- I can visually imagine applications I could create that would help me, individually, but I am completely cut off from the means of making much software without making investments I don’t have money for.

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