In the same style as the article I want to praise the gods of computer programming, who walk amongst us mortals. People who were visionaries, and move the field forward when the rest of us futz around with CRUD apps. People like Linus Torvalds, Dennis Ritchie, Stroustrup, Donald Knuth, and hundreds more.
By them, I am humbled and inspired.
And we can't forget the wars of epic proportions: the Unix wars, and fights with Microsoft & Oracle, and the birth of the free software movement. All of these shaped the current software landscape.
There's also so much to be said about the research labs where it all started...
Indeed, how can you not be romantic about programming
Isn't this so demoralizing, to be working for some company writing boring business apps.
I want to be a visionary. I have these Grace Hopper-esque ideas for how to advance developer experience.
Some examples:
1. Reading code is so complicated.
1.a. It's been 20 years since I first experienced the joy of syntax highlighting, and it feels like nothing has changed since that leap forward in coder ergonomics. We just have different colors for different bits of code, but computers can easily draw so much more than colored text. Shapes, pictures.
1.b. There are so many different ways to write the same instructions. Different developers have different opinions of what constitutes correctly formatted code.
I want tools to deconstruct and reformat code into more easily readable pieces. Really what I want is visual representations of code flow.
2. IDEs have coding auto-complete, but it's wonky. It feels like I'm in my kitchen and open a drawer to get a fork, and in the drawer is every kind of utensil ever invented by man spills out.
I'm not convinced that AI assisted coding tools are the correct path forward.
...
Perhaps this rant is just my ignorance of what tools are out there. I have to admit my experience is Visual Studio and VSCode and SSMS (don't get me started on SSMS). I haven't had much opportunity to explore what else is out there.
By them, I am humbled and inspired.
And we can't forget the wars of epic proportions: the Unix wars, and fights with Microsoft & Oracle, and the birth of the free software movement. All of these shaped the current software landscape.
There's also so much to be said about the research labs where it all started...
Indeed, how can you not be romantic about programming