Re: Emacs history, and "Is Emacs difficult to learn?"

[Emanuel Berg]

Barry Margolin <barmar@alum.mit.edu> writes:

> When spreadsheet software came out, no one told them they were
> "programming" when they put "SUM(A)" in a field and it totalled
> all the values in column A, so they didn't know they couldn't do
> it because they weren't programmers.

But that's not programming, either. That's bookkeeping. In the
world of science and technology, perhaps it is set theory,
relational algebra, or simply stats. It is not programming.

> When you start adding complicated conditionals, loops, etc.,
> non-programmers get confused.

And that is because branching, iteration, looping, and so on *are*
programming. For example, I don't consider HTML programming, but I
*do* consider SQL programming (domain-specific and data-oriented,
but nonetheless) because in SQL, but not in HTML, those stuff that
you mention are there.

-- 
Emanuel Berg - programmer (hire me! CV below)
computer projects: http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
internet activity: http://home.student.uu.se/embe8573