i believe it was @chr@cybre.space who i once saw say something to the effect of "the fact that we're still programming in text shows how far computer science still has to go"
i think about that a lot
there's artfulness, and a sense of the arcane, in skillfully manipulating strange tokens to form the incantations that will get your computer to do what you want
but i often think about how much of programming is only intuitive to me because i've been steeped in it for years
i think visual programming is the next step, and i'm excited to see what people are doing in that area
incidentally: when you're using the shell in *nix, you're programming. there's a reason it's called shell scripting. and i think some of the complaints non-technical users have with learning to code can also give some insight into why the shell is often so user-unfriendly for that demographic
if you truly want a "year of linux on the desktop" someday, that's worth thinking about
i guess i'm making it sound like i have all the answers or something but really i'm just thinking out loud, sorry about that
