Boutique software
Techdirt:Big Flexible Software Or Focused Situational Software?
For years we've had attempts at making programming tools for non-programmers and that hasn't gone very far. Meanwhile, the idea of componentized jigsaw puzzle software has been trotted out on a fairly regular basis -- and while there have been religious wars on various implementations, very little has actually changed in the way most companies develop software.
HyperCard and Applescript come to mind. I tend to think that for very simple things that do not need to scale at all, they can be useful tools. My standard for Applescript used to be that you could build about a page of code before you started swearing at the machine. Past a certain point, "simple" programming tools rapidly get in the way and become a hindrance to development. I at times wonder if the grail of programmerless app building tools can really be realized for anything less than automating drudgery.
Comments
Automating drudgery would be a good first step though. It's remarkable how few programs *can* be automated in ways that are helpful to the user, Applescript aside.
Posted by: Ed Heil | September 3, 2004 2:43 PM
Yeah, it is remarkable, and I'm not sure how to fix it. I find that Applescript is probably the best glue solution but is still flawed, mainly for the reasons I cited above. I imagine the next step could be embedding interpreters in apps, but that seems like too major a deal to just be able to automate some simple tasks.
In my own case, and a number of others I've seen, I find that the kind of person who's going to want to write scripts often maps closely to the kind of person who's going to get rapidly frustrated with the limitations of small languages like Applescript. Or maybe I've just been in the priesthood too long.
Posted by: jbm | September 3, 2004 4:14 PM