The idea of programming via a Graphical User Interface rather than typed code has been around for a long time, but it’s never caught on because usually the solutions are still too hard and abstract for non-programmers to grasp and too cumbersome and clunky for power users comfortable with whipping out cryptic text-based jargon while drinking coffee at the local Starbucks.

But one project that’s trying to go beyond the limitations of both approaches and invent a new programming paradigm is Subtext. It is both a programming language and a development environment, and the demos I’ve seen of it are quite impressive. It’s given me some ideas to chew on in regards to some of my own development with PHP.

Let me put it to you straight: I’m not a big fan of code generation at all. But I’m also not a big fan of typing repetitive boilerplate code over and over again. Maybe it would be possible to offload some of the basic tasks applications typically need to perform to a specially created setup environment that bears some resemblance to Subtext? Interesting.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 11th, 2006 at 8:59 am and is filed under Design Philosophy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.