From the Eve announcement [1]:
> Eve is our way of bringing the power of computation to everyone, not by making everyone a programmer but by finding a better way for us to interact with computers.
The more I try to teach programming to non-programmers, the less I understand the notion of what "programming for non-programmers" really means...in the same way that "writing, but for people who can't write" is a bizarre concept.
Programming, and the notion that code is an explicit way to communicate with a computer, isn't just an inconvenient technical detail that prevents amateurs from reaching their full computational power...it is a true way of thinking, and to not be able to do it limits you in the same way that being illiterate prevents you from creating the next American Great Novel.
I've always believed that understanding a for-loop and if-statement are all you need to really wield the benefits of computation...but I've found that I constantly underestimate what an epiphany is to actually grok those concepts. It's not just the ability to abstract a routine, but the concept of a block of stored instructions and variables that is, as far as I can tell, pretty much alien to anyone who is not a programmer. Or a mathematician.
I'm not saying that efforts like Eve should stop, or that they can't be significantly helpful in bringing greater understanding to non-programmers...I'm just saying its stated goal is incoherent and inherently unattainable, like trying to build a scientific framework aimed at people who refuse to learn math.
[1] http://www.chris-granger.com/2014/10/01/beyond-light-table/
> Eve is our way of bringing the power of computation to everyone, not by making everyone a programmer but by finding a better way for us to interact with computers.
The more I try to teach programming to non-programmers, the less I understand the notion of what "programming for non-programmers" really means...in the same way that "writing, but for people who can't write" is a bizarre concept.
Programming, and the notion that code is an explicit way to communicate with a computer, isn't just an inconvenient technical detail that prevents amateurs from reaching their full computational power...it is a true way of thinking, and to not be able to do it limits you in the same way that being illiterate prevents you from creating the next American Great Novel.
I've always believed that understanding a for-loop and if-statement are all you need to really wield the benefits of computation...but I've found that I constantly underestimate what an epiphany is to actually grok those concepts. It's not just the ability to abstract a routine, but the concept of a block of stored instructions and variables that is, as far as I can tell, pretty much alien to anyone who is not a programmer. Or a mathematician.
I'm not saying that efforts like Eve should stop, or that they can't be significantly helpful in bringing greater understanding to non-programmers...I'm just saying its stated goal is incoherent and inherently unattainable, like trying to build a scientific framework aimed at people who refuse to learn math.
[1] http://www.chris-granger.com/2014/10/01/beyond-light-table/