Path: csiph.com!v102.xanadu-bbs.net!xanadu-bbs.net!usenet.blueworldhosting.com!feeder01.blueworldhosting.com!peer02.iad.highwinds-media.com!news.highwinds-media.com!feed-me.highwinds-media.com!border1.nntp.dca1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!news.iecc.com!.POSTED!nerds-end From: "Gerry Rzeppa" Newsgroups: comp.compilers Subject: Re: A Plain English Compiler Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 01:05:26 -0500 Organization: Compilers Central Lines: 18 Sender: news@iecc.com Approved: comp.compilers@iecc.com Message-ID: <14-10-022@comp.compilers> References: <06-02-122@comp.compilers> <06-02-125@comp.compilers> <14-10-005@comp.compilers> <14-10-008@comp.compilers> <14-10-009@comp.compilers> <14-10-012@comp.compilers>ge-ID: <14-10-020@comp.compilers> NNTP-Posting-Host: news.iecc.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: miucha.iecc.com 1414787465 96528 2001:470:1f07:1126:0:676f:7373:6970 (31 Oct 2014 20:31:05 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@iecc.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 20:31:05 +0000 (UTC) Keywords: history, practice Posted-Date: 31 Oct 2014 16:31:05 EDT X-submission-address: compilers@iecc.com X-moderator-address: compilers-request@iecc.com X-FAQ-and-archives: http://compilers.iecc.com X-Received-Bytes: 2219 X-Received-Body-CRC: 1172357866 Xref: csiph.com comp.compilers:1407 [The small size of the user base worries me. Over and over, stuff that seems obvious and natural to a small group of developers turns out to be strange and baffling to other people. -John] Granted, Plain English has not yet found its niche. Frankly, we see our situation as analogous to the Lisa/Macintosh saga. When Steve Jobs attempted to sell a simple but different machine to seasoned professionals, he failed. (Seems it's true that "user friendly is what the user is used to.") But when he attempted to sell an even simpler machine to "the rest of us," he succeeded. We're thus thinking that the most promising target market for Plain English / Hybrid Programming is primary school education -- where the students have nothing to unlearn. Time will tell. [I'm reminded of Logo, which was a big hit around 1970 teaching kids to program, then disappeared. We'll see. Re the early history of the Macintosh, please argue about it in alt.folklore.computers, not here. -John]