[mattdmrs]

> If you’re a programmer and this offends you, consider how much more value you could create if you didn’t spend half your time as a glorified PSD->HTML translator.

As the author states, the idea of abstracting away the complexity of creating user interfaces isn't new, but I think it's wrong to think we could one day create tools that lets you do that without having to write code and still keep all the flexibility of going sufficiently low-level. An application platform usually gives you low-level building blocks (e.g. Core Animation) and higher-level ones (e.g. UIControl and family). You can construct visual tools to manipulate the latter, but you can't do the same with the former, since they're much more than just position and parameters. Reducing this difference in complexity by blaming it on the tools is misguided IMHO.

There an inherent complexity in coding that isn't its weakness but rather it's advantage. You can't abstract away coding just like you can't abstract away human language or writing. Could you substitute an essay with a very detailed painting?

[riskable]

I was just about to write something like this. Just because you've got a pretty GUI that grandma could use to assemble a sophisticated "app" doesn't mean you have to take away the low-level functionality.

What's wrong with "right-click -> open component in editor"?

I'd also like to add that a lot of people think "coding" means "typing" and their idea of the ultimate abstraction involves a lot of drag & drop. That would be just fine for starting the development of an app but would get really annoying really fast as you start to add more features and functionality.

At the very least give us the option to perform every single task with the keyboard in an efficient manner.

[gte910h]

It vaguely feels like he's talking about http://www.ni.com/labview/ which is just graphical programming (and is far less able to meet the level of specifications most tasks truly have than a real programming language, IMO).