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Re: Enterprise Software Freakishness
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Posted: Nov 8, 2007 6:43 AM
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> Let's forget all we know about graphical guis and start
> with a clean sheet of paper.
>
> Let's put boxes on this paper.
>
> Let's connect those boxes with messages (data, or
> functionality).
>
> Let's use simple expressions edited graphically to define
> those messages.
>
> If you picture it in your head, you will see how easy it
> can be.
When I picture it in my head, including everything I can see that need to be in it, I see it ending up complex.
I suspect the difference is that I have actually tried to design things like this.
Take out a stack of paper, and try to draw up examples of your system - for an entire program.
For instance, a fairly simple app: It takes in a cookie from a web form, and if that cookie is found in a database, it update the firewall ruleset to allow the IP coming in to the web form access to the net. The cookie is "bought time", and when you use it is spent, and the firewall stays open for the allotted amount of time. Your little program also has to check the firewall rules back and see if they have timed out.
This is a description of probably the simplest commercial app I've ever written. It lives with simple flows.
I think even with that you're going to find that your graphical tool is going to show quite a bit of complexity.
My personal experience about programming is that the difficulty isn't in the "way of putting input to the computer" - it is in the difficulty of rigorous thought. Without training, nobody has the rigour necessary to do this well - and a graphical tool isn't going to help much. A graphical tool isn't more efficient than a text based tool; if things could be specified with graphical arrows, we could specify them with "->" in a text based language.
If you can prove me wrong, it would be wonderful, so the best of luck to you. Please, though, before you repeat the old claim that this is feasible, do the work of trying it out for a sample app.
Since I first started programming a quarter of a decade ago, there's continually been people saying that "This should be doable graphically". Nobody has yet delivered. So, please try it out in private before claiming it is doable in public - as the noise these claims generate gets in the way of regular discussion of other topics, and always has.
Eivind.
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