Saturday, March 21, 2009

The Generic Goal



At the moment, the only computing sequences that I've developed, that are helpful, are not completely generic. Even for the same product, say, an e-mail client, a sequence can barely be written that "stays above the development environment". It's much easier to stay within the environment, for now, and work slowly towards building languages and environments that are better suited to smooth sequences of coherent software development. At that point, computing will be sufficiently advanced that it will be possible to write generic sequences for a particular product, where the implementation details are kept within the explanation of each step, and don't invade the body of the sequence. They become, in a sense, pure design sequences ... very much like those Christopher Alexander is working with.

In the meantime, we should value those bits of the development environment that do invade the sequence, because they point out the fundamental problems with the programming environment.

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