I can't say this better than to quote in its entirety a post from "The Original Dinosaur" on the American "Open It Forum."
Machine code (1GL) was too hard for non-programmers, so we invented assemblers (2GL). Assembler was too hard, so we invented FORTRAN (engineers can now write their own programs) and COBOL (accountants can write and auditors can read) (3GL). 3GLs were too hard, so we invented non-procedural CODASYL databases and languages like RAMIS, SAS and FOCUS (4GL). Then SQL came along as a "better" 4GL. Special purpose tools like CROSSTAB were replaced by VisiCalc and the spreadsheet programs. Et cetera.
All these advances have made the programmer more effective. They have not made programming accessible to non-programmers.
The 2010 executive will fail to create a working application for the same reason his parents couldn't write COBOL programs - they none of them can develop and carry out a complete and correct plan to accomplish an objective. They will tell you they are "too busy". What they mean is that it is TOO HARD.
Machine code (1GL) was too hard for non-programmers, so we invented assemblers (2GL). Assembler was too hard, so we invented FORTRAN (engineers can now write their own programs) and COBOL (accountants can write and auditors can read) (3GL). 3GLs were too hard, so we invented non-procedural CODASYL databases and languages like RAMIS, SAS and FOCUS (4GL). Then SQL came along as a "better" 4GL. Special purpose tools like CROSSTAB were replaced by VisiCalc and the spreadsheet programs. Et cetera.
All these advances have made the programmer more effective. They have not made programming accessible to non-programmers.
The 2010 executive will fail to create a working application for the same reason his parents couldn't write COBOL programs - they none of them can develop and carry out a complete and correct plan to accomplish an objective. They will tell you they are "too busy". What they mean is that it is TOO HARD.
Comment