The weird thing (IMO) is that computers are already universal machines, so why isn't any programming language already enough for any task?
In other words, why hasn't Excel fully defeated all comers?
It's widely known but seldom appreciated that Excel is the most popular and successful programing language in history. And not just a little. It wins by a large margin. So why do people still pay you and I to "make things go"? (Yes, that's a Pakled reference. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Pakled)
I think to answer this question you have to understand the difference between what we have now and what we could have.
What we have now is a stack: OS, WM, "Desktop" -> Separate "Applications" often with their own GUI (in addition to the OS-provided defaults) -> Web "apps" where anything goes (up to and including "dark patterns" like fake widgets designed to mimic OS-level modal dialogs.) All of this is conceptual overhead that adds nothing to the achievement of the prime tasks (that humans are using computer for in the first place.)
What we could have: I have two examples: The Oberon OS and Jef Raskin's work.
> These ideas include content persistence, modelessness, a nucleus with commands instead of applications, navigation using incremental text search, and a zooming user interface (ZUI).
The core idea is to get "applications" and even modes out of the way, disintermediate as much as possible between the user and the raw computing power of the machine.
In sum, we spend an enormous amount of time and energy working on things that have no intrinsic bearing on the tasks we hope to accomplish, largely due to the lack of awareness that it's possible to dispense with most of what is today considered normal UI. We are "turd polishing".
If you get out of the users' way, they can implement their own requirements.
- - - -
Here's RMS talking about secretaries extending Emacs with Lisp:
> programming new editing commands was so convenient that even the secretaries in his [Bernie Greenberg] office started learning how to use it. They used a manual someone had written which showed how to extend Emacs, but didn't say it was a programming. So the secretaries, who believed they couldn't do programming, weren't scared off. They read the manual, discovered they could do useful things and they learned to program.
In other words, why hasn't Excel fully defeated all comers?
It's widely known but seldom appreciated that Excel is the most popular and successful programing language in history. And not just a little. It wins by a large margin. So why do people still pay you and I to "make things go"? (Yes, that's a Pakled reference. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Pakled)
I think to answer this question you have to understand the difference between what we have now and what we could have.
What we have now is a stack: OS, WM, "Desktop" -> Separate "Applications" often with their own GUI (in addition to the OS-provided defaults) -> Web "apps" where anything goes (up to and including "dark patterns" like fake widgets designed to mimic OS-level modal dialogs.) All of this is conceptual overhead that adds nothing to the achievement of the prime tasks (that humans are using computer for in the first place.)
What we could have: I have two examples: The Oberon OS and Jef Raskin's work.
https://inf.ethz.ch/personal/wirth/ProjectOberon/ http://www.projectoberon.com/ Try it live in your browser: https://schierlm.github.io/OberonEmulator/emu.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jef_Raskin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Humane_Interface_(Book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_Cat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archy
> These ideas include content persistence, modelessness, a nucleus with commands instead of applications, navigation using incremental text search, and a zooming user interface (ZUI).
The core idea is to get "applications" and even modes out of the way, disintermediate as much as possible between the user and the raw computing power of the machine.
In sum, we spend an enormous amount of time and energy working on things that have no intrinsic bearing on the tasks we hope to accomplish, largely due to the lack of awareness that it's possible to dispense with most of what is today considered normal UI. We are "turd polishing".
If you get out of the users' way, they can implement their own requirements.
- - - -
Here's RMS talking about secretaries extending Emacs with Lisp:
> programming new editing commands was so convenient that even the secretaries in his [Bernie Greenberg] office started learning how to use it. They used a manual someone had written which showed how to extend Emacs, but didn't say it was a programming. So the secretaries, who believed they couldn't do programming, weren't scared off. They read the manual, discovered they could do useful things and they learned to program.
https://www.gnu.org/gnu/rms-lisp.html