Mail Archives: djgpp/1999/08/07/14:38:35
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Its a good question and the answer is a subjective one. No, visual tools
will not make programmers obsolete. What visual tools will do is to bring
programming within the grasp of a wider range of people. The
"intuitiveness" of a visual programming tool allows a programmer to
concentrate more on the graphical flow of a program, its logic, and not
concern him or herself so much with the coding, indentation, syntax, etc.
What really blows my mind is that it took so damn long for someone to come
up with the idea in the first place. I have a friend who works on large
scale business applications programming in Visual C++ and guess what the
first thing it is they do when they start a project?!
That's right, they draw a huge flowchart of the proposed program. They do
this so that they can concentrate on the logical flow of the program. Then
they take out a pair of scissors and divide up the coding duties amongst
themselves. Each individual programmer takes their little piece of the
picture and codes it into something that makes it totally incomprehensible
to the untrained observer.
What a visual programming tool does is to maintain the focus on the logical
flow of the program (is that such a strange concept?). Visual programming
tools make it exceptionally easy for a programmer to describe the logic
flow in a program to a non tech person. I know that there are those of you
out there that have experienced the same things I have where your boss is a
pure administrator and paper pusher whose job it is to manage you and also
technologies completely beyond their comprehension.
There are some limitations on visual programming tools such as recursion
being hard to represent visually, and the fact that as more and more visual
components are added to a program, the screen can get awful cluttered and
the "threads" or flow of data within a program can start to look like
spaghetti. There are some solutions to the spaghetti problem such as
combining complex interrelated visual components together into a package or
a reusable function. What you end up with sometimes is similar to a box
within a box within a box, etc. until the final box has a very simple
logical flow with each surrounding box having a more complex structure
inside of it. If this sounds like nested functions, you are right.
Fear not the future, for it is here. There are good reasons to rejoice
over this fact. It's a time that is strikingly similar to the advent of
the automobile. When it first arrived on the scene, people were scared to
death. They thought the car was a creation of the Devil, etc. etc. No,
visual programming will not cause the end of the need for programmers, it
will just create a need for them to adapt. The most apparent impact,
besides making programming less scary to the newcomer, and more available
to the public at large, is that program development times will drop
dramatically. I read one article which stated that after using Sanscript
to create a certain type of program for a customer (a job that took a whole
month), that the programmer was able to create a similar program for a
different customer in only 3 days!!! The reusability of components and
other specialized functions which are inherent in my favorite visual
programming tool, Sanscript, guarantee that it will cause many converts.
The power of these new visual tools is quite impressive. Compaq recently
used Sanscript to create a new data warehousing program which is quite
revolutionary in that it also allows users to use a visual environment to
perform data extraction, data replication, etc. I can guarantee that the
person who headed the design team that used Sanscript to create this was an
experienced programmer who, without an in-depth knowledge of the "behind
the scenes" workings of programming (that is to say that he knew what C++
code would be generated), could never have developed such a complex and
revolutionary program.
No, the sky is not falling. For a glimpse of the future (bleeding edge) of
programming, there are many visual tools to look at (I am providing only my
two favorites, although this is in no way an exhaustive list). My second
favorite is Pictorius' Prograph, and my favorite is Sanscript. (I have a
sneaking suspicion that the guys at Northwoods streamlined and perfected
many of the concepts that you can find in Prograph)
Sanscript Pro allows you to import COM, DCOM, DLL files, Class Libraries,
& Active X components and create visual objects from them. Collections of
the visual objects made from imported files are called cabinets. These
visual objects can be used in programs created by Sanscript to control the
look and feel and of the programs which they were extracted from and also
to duplicate their functionality in a brand new program. Sanscript allows
you to choose C++ or Java or binary executables as your output (in OEM
version only, trial download only permits running the programs within the
Sanscript program).
Either ride the wave of the future or get crushed by it. Those are the
choices. In case you are wondering, Visual Basic and Visual C++ pale by
comparison to Sanscript and Prograph. How they can even include "Visual"
in their names is beyond me. If the fact that you can see the textual
code as you are writing it on a screen makes it visual, then let's start
referring to DJGPP as Visual DJGPP...LOL
Yes, for the most part DOS is dead. Yet, there are some things you can do
in DOS that I appreciate, such as when I try to delete a file that Windows
doesn't want me to, I still go to a dos prompt and perform that good old
"magical" deltree on it. Thank GOD for deltree. Besides that I can't
really think of anything else I do in a non windows type environment,
except reformatting my hard drive and reloading everything which I do about
every 6 months or when the hard drive becomes corrupted, whichever comes
first.
Will there always be people who use DOS as their only programming
environment? Of course, just as there will always be people who program
purely in Assembly code, COBOL, Pascal, Fortran, etc. When's the last time
you saw a help wanted advertisement for a Pascal programmer?! Similarly,
there will always be Amish people who drive horse driven carts in our age
of automobiles...LOL.
I don't want to be perceived as being "down on DJGPP." It provides an
opportunity for people such as myself to learn C++. I will be applying
this knowledge to help me understand the underpinnings of truly visual
programming I will be doing in the future. For this knowledge, I am happy
to have had the good fortune to stumble onto DJGPP online
David Oppenheimer
zidharta AT geocities DOT com wrote:
> No Im not idiot ... but you are look like one ...
> Im asking because Im concern about this issue
> and would like to know hows everybody think about it
>
> Visual programming being developed everyday ...
> would this be a sign that programmers will not be needed
> or may be less needed in the future ... is one of the concern ...
>
> may be other have different opinion about this
> Im sure most programmers have been thinking about this too
> thats what Im looking for ...
>
> not an emotional unintelligent comment like this
>
> Sid
> -you worse than what you said people are-
>
> In article <37A92688 DOT 620B1D1C AT a DOT crl DOT com>,
> Weiqi Gao <weiqigao AT a DOT crl DOT com> wrote:
> > zidharta AT geocities DOT com wrote:
> > >
> > > what do you think about this subject ...
> > > I would like to know what people think of ...
> > > this is a genuine question ...
> > > no emotional response please
> >
> > What do you mean "no emotional response", you idiot?
> > Why do you have to rub it in like that? We know we are obsolete, and
> > not needed a hundred times already!
> > Are you happy now?
> > Now go away!
> >
> > --
> > Weiqi Gao
> > weiqigao AT a DOT crl DOT com
> >
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
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Its a good question and the answer is a subjective one. No, visual
tools will not make programmers obsolete. What visual tools will
do is to bring programming within the grasp of a wider range of people.
The "intuitiveness" of a visual programming tool allows a programmer to
concentrate more on the graphical flow of a program, its logic, and not
concern him or herself so much with the coding, indentation, syntax, etc.
What really blows my mind is that it took so damn long for someone to come
up with the idea in the first place. I have a friend who works on
large scale business applications programming in Visual C++ and guess what
the first thing it is they do when they start a project?!
<p>That's right, they draw a huge flowchart of the proposed program.
They do this so that they can concentrate on the logical flow of the program.
Then they take out a pair of scissors and divide up the coding duties amongst
themselves. Each individual programmer takes their little piece of
the picture and codes it into something that makes it totally incomprehensible
to the untrained observer.
<p>What a visual programming tool does is to maintain the focus on the
logical flow of the program (is that such a strange concept?). Visual
programming tools make it exceptionally easy for a programmer to describe
the logic flow in a program to a non tech person. I know that there
are those of you out there that have experienced the same things I have
where your boss is a pure administrator and paper pusher whose job it is
to manage you and also technologies completely beyond their comprehension.
<p>There are some limitations on visual programming tools such as recursion
being hard to represent visually, and the fact that as more and more visual
components are added to a program, the screen can get awful cluttered and
the "threads" or flow of data within a program can start to look like spaghetti.
There are some solutions to the spaghetti problem such as combining complex
interrelated visual components together into a package or a reusable function.
What you end up with sometimes is similar to a box within a box within
a box, etc. until the final box has a very simple logical flow with each
surrounding box having a more complex structure inside of it.
If this sounds like nested functions, you are right.
<p>Fear not the future, for it is here. There are good reasons to
rejoice over this fact. It's a time that is strikingly similar to
the advent of the automobile. When it first arrived on the scene,
people were scared to death. They thought the car was a creation
of the Devil, etc. etc. No, visual programming will not cause the
end of the need for programmers, it will just create a need for them to
adapt. The most apparent impact, besides making programming less
scary to the newcomer, and more available to the public at large, is that
program development times will drop dramatically. I read one article
which stated that after using Sanscript to create a certain type of program
for a customer (a job that took a whole month), that the programmer was
able to create a similar program for a different customer in only 3 days!!!
The reusability of components and other specialized functions which are
inherent in my favorite visual programming tool, Sanscript, guarantee
that it will cause many converts. The power of these new visual tools
is quite impressive. Compaq recently used Sanscript to create a new
data warehousing program which is quite revolutionary in that it also allows
users to use a visual environment to perform data extraction, data replication,
etc. I can guarantee that the person who headed the design team that
used Sanscript to create this was an experienced programmer who, without
an in-depth knowledge of the "behind the scenes" workings of programming
(that is to say that he knew what C++ code would be generated), could never
have developed such a complex and revolutionary program.
<p>No, the sky is not falling. For a glimpse of the future (bleeding
edge) of programming, there are many visual tools to look at (I am providing
only my two favorites, although this is in no way an exhaustive list).
My second favorite is Pictorius' <a href="http://192.219.29.95/scripts/iNetHelper.dll/pictorius.ind*PrographWindows">Prograph</a>,
and my favorite is <a href="http://www.trulyvisual.com">Sanscript</a>.
(I have a sneaking suspicion that the guys at Northwoods streamlined and
perfected many of the concepts that you can find in Prograph)
<p>Sanscript Pro allows you to import COM, DCOM, DLL files, Class
Libraries, & Active X components and create visual objects from them.
Collections of the visual objects made from imported files are called cabinets.
These visual objects can be used in programs created by Sanscript to control
the look and feel and of the programs which they were extracted from
and also to duplicate their functionality in a brand new program.
Sanscript allows you to choose C++ or Java or binary executables as your
output (in OEM version only, trial download only permits running the programs
within the Sanscript program).
<p>Either ride the wave of the future or get crushed by it. Those
are the choices. In case you are wondering, Visual Basic and
Visual C++ pale by comparison to Sanscript and Prograph. How they
can even include "Visual" in their names is beyond me. If the
fact that you can see the textual code as you are writing it on a screen
makes it visual, then let's start referring to DJGPP as Visual DJGPP...LOL
<p>Yes, for the most part DOS is dead. Yet, there are some things
you can do in DOS that I appreciate, such as when I try to delete a file
that Windows doesn't want me to, I still go to a dos prompt and perform
that good old "magical" deltree on it. Thank GOD for deltree.
Besides that I can't really think of anything else I do in a non windows
type environment, except reformatting my hard drive and reloading everything
which I do about every 6 months or when the hard drive becomes corrupted,
whichever comes first.
<p>Will there always be people who use DOS as their only programming environment?
Of course, just as there will always be people who program purely in Assembly
code, COBOL, Pascal, Fortran, etc. When's the last time you saw a
help wanted advertisement for a Pascal programmer?! Similarly, there
will always be Amish people who drive horse driven carts in our age of
automobiles...LOL.
<p>I don't want to be perceived as being "down on DJGPP." It provides
an opportunity for people such as myself to learn C++. I will be
applying this knowledge to help me understand the underpinnings of truly
visual programming I will be doing in the future. For this knowledge,
I am happy to have had the good fortune to stumble onto DJGPP online
<p>David Oppenheimer
<p>zidharta AT geocities DOT com wrote:
<blockquote TYPE=CITE>No Im not idiot ... but you are look like one ...
<br>Im asking because Im concern about this issue
<br>and would like to know hows everybody think about it
<p>Visual programming being developed everyday ...
<br>would this be a sign that programmers will not be needed
<br>or may be less needed in the future ... is one of the concern ...
<p>may be other have different opinion about this
<br>Im sure most programmers have been thinking about this too
<br>thats what Im looking for ...
<p>not an emotional unintelligent comment like this
<p>Sid
<br>-you worse than what you said people are-
<p>In article <37A92688 DOT 620B1D1C AT a DOT crl DOT com>,
<br> Weiqi Gao <weiqigao AT a DOT crl DOT com> wrote:
<br>> zidharta AT geocities DOT com wrote:
<br>> >
<br>> > what do you think about this subject ...
<br>> > I would like to know what people think of ...
<br>> > this is a genuine question ...
<br>> > no emotional response please
<br>>
<br>> What do you mean "no emotional response", you idiot?
<br>> Why do you have to rub it in like that? We know we are obsolete,
and
<br>> not needed a hundred times already!
<br>> Are you happy now?
<br>> Now go away!
<br>>
<br>> --
<br>> Weiqi Gao
<br>> weiqigao AT a DOT crl DOT com
<br>>
<p>Sent via Deja.com <a href="http://www.deja.com/">http://www.deja.com/</a>
<br>Share what you know. Learn what you don't.</blockquote>
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