zlacker

>>flocia+(OP)
This makes me wonder what someone with less computer experience would do, ie if you're not a former computer professional.

Sure, open source makes everything rather accessible from a monetary point of view, but you still have to learn things. I almost feel like in the past there were more attempts at making this accessible to the end user, HyperCard, dbase etc, even just BASIC on your 8-bit machine.

Nowadays? Excel/Google Sheets for the most simple case, probably, but if you have to transfer data from/into there or present it differently? Web sites and GUIs aren't that easy, but it's what the users know.

If your point of interaction with a computer is more bare-bones (eg a BASIC/DOS prompt), solutions feel closer, easier to grasp.

>>mhd+jc
> I almost feel like in the past there were more attempts at making this accessible to the end user, HyperCard, dbase etc, even just BASIC on your 8-bit machine.

Oh for sure, look at web: we transformed something simple and beautiful like html+css in a complete shit show.

Also, I don't feel like the new programming languages are easier then COBOL or BASIC, quite the contrary. We are making technology more complicated for no reason.

Or at least, at the time we had the very complicated stuff and stuff that simplified complexity. Think about S and SPSS.

Now we have complicated and very complicated. We are giving less creative possibilities to the end user: making them consumers, first of all.

Other example VB6.

>>kome+vi
I still miss VB6. It was a beautiful tool and easy to make GUIs with. I still can’t handle writing native GUIs without a good WYSIWYG editor. Delphi was cool, but Object Pascal?! Many people still swear by Delphi and it’s because when your code is UI focused Delphi makes that super easy.