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 have heard your replies and our takeaway for today is: kasran knows nothing about ux, operating systems, or computers in general, and you should not take her opinions seriously