bnfb@june.cs.washington.edu (Bjorn Freeman-Benson) (01/29/88)
I see the problem as more of a continuum between everything being a little language and having only one huge language. Never approach is "right" --- perhaps there are one or more points in the middle where people would be happy. UNIX is an example of system with a number of little languages: AWK, GREP, SORT command line, ... and a couple large ones: C, LaTeX/TeX, troff, ... The MacIntosh has completely Huge languages: each application has it's own Perhaps a smaller set of languages and a computing environment to help hook them together would be possible. I claim that there are a small finite number of types of computing: text processing numeric processing database lookup graphics others? Granted, these are inter-related, but perhaps we could form a moderate langauge for each, and provide a good environment to work with them. Ack. I've gone on long enough. If this article generates any heat (or light), I'll post some more ideas. Bjorn N. Freeman-Benson
skh@hpclskh.HP.COM (01/30/88)
>I claim that there are a small finite number of types of computing: > text processing > numeric processing > database lookup > graphics > others? > Let's not forget about Data Entry and Report Generation. You may consider these to be a subset of the above, but I think that would be a big mistake. programming around forms can be tough work, and reports do not fit will under text processing per se. For technical users, these areas are (perhaps unfortunately) almost nonexistant...but let's remember there are LOTS of business applications too. Stewart Hill