Autocoding project proposal.

[phil hunt]

On Sat, 26 Jan 2002 23:27:32 +0000, Jonathan Hogg <jonathan at onegoodidea.com> wrote:
>
>In another article in this thread, Phil Hunt wrote:
>> In that case, please explain why many of the most talented programmers
>> are developing open source software, which they are giving away to
>> anyone who wants it, and that many open source projects are explicitly
>> aimed at making things easier for end-users?
>
>I think that's a bogus argument. I've not seen any Open Source software that
>makes any particular effort to open up the internal functionality to
>non-programmers. 

Of course, this is partly a matter of definition. If you define who writes
an Applescript or a macro as a "programmer" (they are certainly writing
a program), then by definition there can be no programming systems for
non-programmers. But there *are* open source projects that aim to
make programming easier for casual programmers. Examples:

(1) In another post on this thread, someone points out that GNOME as
a system of application directories similar to the Applescript system.

(2) The python language is explicitly designed to be easy to program in.
It's creator, Guido van Rossum takes a big interest in making programming
easy -- consider thar Python was based on his earlier ABC language, which
was designed for ease-of-use by non-professionals. Then there's his
"Computer Programming For Everybody" project.

>The problem with the primary user interface to a program is that it is based
>on what the programmer thought would be useful to the user - the menus,
>buttons, windows, etc. that they have defined. It is limited by their
>imagination instead of the user's imagination.

Absolutely. That's why applications should be invocable programmatically 
as well as using a GUI.

>I wrote a bunch of small AppleScripts in the past that would send commands
>to a larger script running on a computer across the room that would
>interrogate the Finder to get a list of mp3 files on the harddrive, choose
>one at random, then ask the QuickTime player to open and play it. I drew
>icons for the small scripts and put them into a toolbar utility that would
>execute them when clicked. By sending commands to the toolbar utility I was
>able to get it to display different icons indicating the
>stopped/playing/paused status.
>
>None of the applications I scripted to do this were designed to be a
>jukebox. In fact none of them on their own could have done it. But since all
>of the programmers had provided me with the hooks necessary to use their
>functionality directly, I was able to make one.

It's good that you were able to do that. Evidently Applescript is a 
useful system for that sort of problem.

>I honestly do agree with you Timothy, but the problem is that unless you can
>persuade programmers to make these "side doors", to convince them of the
>freedom they provide to the user, then your machine is going to grind away
>with nothing to talk to.

Until someoner builds a system for doing useful stuff with the "side
doors", no-one will build any in. To some extent this is chicken-and-egg.
I see two solutions (i) built a progresamming system that interpretes
"side doors"b and also allows useful stuff to be done interacting with
systems that don't have them, (ii) build some apps that do have "side
doors" -- or modify existing apps to have them.

(if the proponent of a "side door" system isn't prepared to do this 
himself, at least far enough to get a technology demonstrator working, 
why should they expect anyone else to do it for them?)

>Unfortunately, programmers are a prickly bunch and you won't get far by
>accusing them of being elitist or ignorant (even if they might be).

Tim's problem is that he is very good at (probably inadvertently) rubbing
people up the wrong way. He also is a poor communicator -- it is often hard
to get at what he is driving at. He also has a strange attitude towards
others -- he wants them to do things for him, and at the same time 
castigates them for being elitist and/or stupid.

-- 
===== Philip Hunt ===== philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk =====
One OS to rule them all, one OS to find them,
One OS to bring them all and in the darkness bind them,
In the Land of Redmond, where the Shadows lie.