To me, these are what computing should be all about: blurring the distinction between user/programmer, but providing gradations of complexity, comprehensiveness, and control.
Lazarus aside, it seems FOSS isn't going to give us the kind of RAD tools that one might hope for -- thinks more like Hypercard and related. Such efforts require the kind of resources (long periods of time and good funding, to start) that loose networks of casual contributors are never going to be able to provide. And in today's world, where next-quarter reporting and shareholder primacy dominate enterprise decisions, it's even rare to get something truly immersive and new from commercial entities (Apple is the biggest corp in the world. Do they have something like their ATG group from the 90s? If so, what the hell are they working on?)
> Lisp, Smalltalk and Forth ruined me for life)
Same here, but there's a (partial) reason these aren't really viable in today's computing culture. The first is that they really are for whole computing systems that don't necessarily make a distinction between user and programmer. The culture we have today is the opposite of this: users are consumers, first and foremost. Computing systems are thus mechanisms that run isolated "applications" whose ability to be modified by regular people is severely limited compared to what we know (and have known for 4 decades) is possible.
Lazarus aside, it seems FOSS isn't going to give us the kind of RAD tools that one might hope for -- thinks more like Hypercard and related. Such efforts require the kind of resources (long periods of time and good funding, to start) that loose networks of casual contributors are never going to be able to provide. And in today's world, where next-quarter reporting and shareholder primacy dominate enterprise decisions, it's even rare to get something truly immersive and new from commercial entities (Apple is the biggest corp in the world. Do they have something like their ATG group from the 90s? If so, what the hell are they working on?)
> Lisp, Smalltalk and Forth ruined me for life)
Same here, but there's a (partial) reason these aren't really viable in today's computing culture. The first is that they really are for whole computing systems that don't necessarily make a distinction between user and programmer. The culture we have today is the opposite of this: users are consumers, first and foremost. Computing systems are thus mechanisms that run isolated "applications" whose ability to be modified by regular people is severely limited compared to what we know (and have known for 4 decades) is possible.