On Friday, 17 February 2012 at 17:49:53 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 08:56:58AM +0100, F i L wrote:
[...]
Thought to be honest I doubt we'll all still be designing
applications
in text (only) editors, even fancy ones, in the next 10-15
years.
I know I still will be. I have never liked IDE's, and probably
never
will.
Software design is very modular, and even arbitrary logic
tools could
be better at presenting this data. Simple things like
code-completion
has gone a long way flatten the learning curve, and that can
only get
better when visual and audio logic can be manipulated in
like-fashion.
[...]
True, but the initial learning curve *is* only just the initial
learning
curve. Programming is essentially difficult, and whether the
initial
learning curve was easy or not, sooner or later you will still
have to
come to grips with the same difficult programming problems that
will
require a lot of effort and ingenuity to solve.
Unless you're talking about trivial things like writing GUI
interfaces
and stuff like that, which require no more than the usual
manipulation
of arrays and lists and simple stuff like that.
Once you get past these trivial things, and get to non-trivial
problems
like finding a good approximation for the travelling salesman
problem,
or computing higher-dimensional convex hulls, say, you'll have
to think
in the abstract anyway, so the representation really doesn't
matter that
much. Might as well stick with text-only representation so
that you can
focus on the actual problem instead of being distracted by
pretty
graphics.
T
Yes, that's why i said "text (only)" because some concepts are
simply so abstract in nature, that "writing down" the precise
logic is the most efficient way to convey them. But typing is
only more direct when you: 1) know the name of what you're
looking for, and 2) The problem isn't visual, or you don't think
visually. If you ask a person to move an object from point A to
point B, they will visualize the movement and use their hands to
carry it out without ever really analyzing which muscles or
numerical angles they need for approach. Moving visual data, or
even abstract objects like memory, around might be best
"illustrated" to the computer by recording a more hands-on
example and having the compiler optimize that behavior in the
best possible way. With fine-tuning step-by-step control a
natural, but more expert approach.
In advertising, the more positive senses (sight, sound, touch,
etc) you can associate with a product or brand, the more you'll
get a positive knee-jerk response to that item, because emotional
memory is reinforced through association like any other memory.
In good UI design, visual/audial distinction serves to associate
controls with their function, while striving to advertise as much
positive emotion as possible. A good example of this is GMail's
new interface where important controls are conveyed in red and
options are blue. So while "fancy graphics" for the sake of
advertising alone would do nothing to boost efficiency, "fancy
functional graphics" could help make developing software more
direct, more conveyable, and more enjoyable overall.
