I have two takeaways from this - first is that spreadsheets are an accessible metaphor, and grok'able by many for whom coding as we know it is too long and hard to learn.
So on the surface I think the superficial thrust of this is rather blunted.
But, and it's a really big but, software is the new literacy. And it is long and hard to learn to read and write, but we force our children to do it as a society because of the orders of magnitude benefits.
And so the same will become true of software - but not at the paltry expressive level of say, pg's Blub language - but at something Haskell is trying for.
I say there are three kinds of stages of sophistication for a person or a company - not coding, automating and compiler.
We want our children to be operating at the compiler level - so we want them to be using the languages Haskell will evolve into.
So on the surface I think the superficial thrust of this is rather blunted.
But, and it's a really big but, software is the new literacy. And it is long and hard to learn to read and write, but we force our children to do it as a society because of the orders of magnitude benefits.
And so the same will become true of software - but not at the paltry expressive level of say, pg's Blub language - but at something Haskell is trying for.
I say there are three kinds of stages of sophistication for a person or a company - not coding, automating and compiler.
We want our children to be operating at the compiler level - so we want them to be using the languages Haskell will evolve into.
Now where did I put my copy of SICP?
Edit: Blub language not Blah...