Re:Now might be the best time to learn software development
by aitchnyu on Wednesday June 18, 2025 @02:37AM
(#44307202)
Fortran promised to eliminate debugging. In 2015, I taught React is a functional programming way to create very fast, bug free apps and the project manager found ways to push us to the hair-on-fire status quo.
"FORTRAN should virtually eliminate coding and debugging" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3970011
Re:Now might be the best time to learn software development
by Gravityloss on Wednesday June 18, 2025 @03:19AM
(#44307414)
SQL had similar promises.
But it still has been immensely useful and a durable paradigm, even though usage hasn't been exactly as thought.
Re:Now might be the best time to learn software development
by soco on Wednesday June 18, 2025 @05:38AM
(#44308232)
Excel enters the chat
Re:Now might be the best time to learn software development
by Izkata on Wednesday June 18, 2025 @08:30AM
(#44309293)
"Now hold still, I'm about to perform a miracle."
Re:Now might be the best time to learn software development
by bonoboTP on Wednesday June 18, 2025 @08:45AM
(#44309416)
For some strange reason Excel really managed to do it. Many many people who don't think of themselves anywhere near being a programmer, somehow get at ease in front of Excel enough that they often inadvertently and kind of unawarely end up learning programming concepts and creating much more complex computational applications than its been possible with any other tool for non-developers.
Re:Now might be the best time to learn software development
by Izkata on Wednesday June 18, 2025 @09:34AM
(#44309762)
I have a theory on that, based on something I do that over the years I've learned a lot of my co-workers don't do: When I'm reading code, I have the contents of the variables all in mind and am manipulating them as I read the code. When describing it a couple of times they've said "oh, like a human compiler"... So I really don't know what's going on in their heads, but this seems like the reason I can understand code I haven't seen before faster than most of them.
Spreadsheets flip the usual interface from code-first to data-first, so the program is directly presenting the user with a version of what I'm doing in my head. It allows them to go step-by-step building up the code while focusing on what they want to do (transform data) instead of having to do it in their head while focusing on the how (the code).
Re:Now might be the best time to learn software development
by bonoboTP on Wednesday June 18, 2025 @10:53AM
(#44310443)
Yes, laying everything out in a 2D grid is just quite intuitive, like arranging objects on a tabletop. Also, it's flat, there's little nesting and you don't have to come up with abstraction hierarchies and loops are typically just unrolled in place.
"Before 1954, almost all programming was done in machine language or assembly language. Programmers rightly regarded their work as a complex, creative art that required human inventiveness to produce an efficient program."
-John Backus, "The History of Fortran I, II, and III", https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/800025.1198345
"The IBM Mathematical Formula Translating System or briefly, FORTRAN, will comprise a large set of programs to enable the IBM 704 to accept a concise formulation of a problem in terms of a mathematical notation and to produce automatically a high speed 704 program for the solution of the problem."
-IBM, "Specifications for the IBM Mathematical FORmula TRANslating System, FORTRAN", http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Fortran/10...