When I started programming in 1976, the computer world already had several programming languages. There was Fortran, Algol, Cobol, PL/1, Assembler, and half a dozen others. Apart from the scientists and engineers that used these languages, there was the one language which was supposed to be for the common man. BASIC. Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. The language, which anyone could learn and understand in short order.
The BASIC of those days was simple, useful and could perform complex tasks, by contrast to moder programming notations and steep learning curves. However, the BASIC language has not only become so complex that you need a computer just to hold all the manuals but it has a learning curve the likes of which even God has never seen!
If you are using anything that is remotely associated with Microsoft™ then you have to face the fact that you will need a cart to carry all the manuals that come with the CD’s. On top of that, plan on spending at least 2 months reading the first manual and going through it step by step. Upon completion of that, if you really want to perform any useful tasks, you will have to master still more manuals.
It used to be that the reference manual for almost any language could be printed using fewer than 200 pages. These days, even lowly BASIC’s reference manuals are several volumes totaling more than 2000 pages.
The average person just doesn’t have enough time to learn programming using one of these behemoth language packages. We waste more time just checking references these days then we do actually trying our code. And the time frame with which it takes to learn to really program is not available to any normal person who works for a living. The only people these days who can really take the time to learn how to program are those who work for someone who is paying them to learn it, or young people who have no life nor intend on having any type of social life for a few years (i.e. closet cases).
When I wrote my first programming book in 1984, the first half of the book was less than 100 pages and covered almost anything that could be done in BASIC. That is not to say that I showed all of the programs that could be written, only the ways in which you could use the commands. (More like a users reference).
It seems that today the focus is on how to bore the user to death prior to actually allowing them to really do anything. Every time I hear about a new programming device or tool, I shudder to think about whether it will help the user to program in a short time or will it take eons just to read the manual and figure out how to really use the package.
What we need today is a new programming environment that employs a small number of commands to accomplish complex tasks. One possible way to accomplish this is through the development and usage of better macro languages. This type of programming is not only beneficial to the average home user who wants to write a short program but it will also benefit corporations who need to cut down on development time.
This is the way in which many companies in the 1980’s wrote their BBS software. Modemworks by Morgan Davis, and Amper Manager by Rick Sutcliffe are two such useful programs. Modemworks allowed complicated communications routines to be called with a single line in Applesoft BASIC where Amper Manager allowed shortened DOS commands and 70 some odd other useful commands. Of course there have been other such programs over the years but none of them seem to be prevalent today. Even with the Internet, this has been lost and if you don’t know HTML, PERL, Java Script and other programming / scripting languages then you can’t accomplish squat without a WYSIWYG editor.
Where are the great macro system developers of yesterday? None of the systems I have seen lately are easily able to coax me to go to my computer and write macro programs that are usable in my daily life. And as we teach the children of today to be the programmers of tomorrow, many of them are resorting to going back to the Apple II and Apple II gs computers for that source of good programming environments that can be learned by anyone.
This lack of real progress in simplifying computers is not only going to be the downfall of the computer in the hobby world but is also going to cause a real lack of future scientists and programmers as a whole. What we need is for someone to write a new BASIC, which is really BASIC. Not something that is less with more command but a BASIC that is more with fewer commands and can be understood by any average user instead of gurus and closet case programmers, and most of all, one which does not destroy an entire forest just for the getting started manual.
