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by tangert
2302 days ago
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your point about UI complexity reflecting the complexity of the problem + level of control is totally true in regard to most tools - but one of the key points at replit is that we are trying to create a programming environment that appeals to both beginners and experts. we don't want to block out hobbyists. that's really the main point of comparison to Premiere- if someone is interested in learning about film production, you shouldn't have to go to iMovie and then "graduate" to Premiere (or Canva -> Photoshop, SketchUp -> Autocad). tools should grow with you (ideally)! complexity is always relative but I think the end point here is that there's always room for simplification and shallower learning curves, even for advanced/pro users. |
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While there are solutions that both experts and beginners can benifit from (like Blenders 2.8 UI overhaul), everybody who has done every manual job ever might have learned that the optimized professional tool you used has a learning curve for a reason: when you know how to use it, it is literally faster and gets less in your way than the friendly intuitive and self explainatory variant of the tool.
The kind of dynamic scaling you mentioned is always desireable, but not always possible without introducing considerable complexity into a software — especially in complex domains like editing, audio or 3D the hard thing usually is to develop a language of adjectives and verbs the user can throw onto the objects they work with. And learning this can feel like learning a new language for a reason. And like with languages a simple combination of grunts and gestures might be enough for certain communicative goals, but sometimes it pays off to learn the actual developed language to really express what you want.
The most powerful software that gets in your way the least I ever learned had incredibly steep learning curves, but once you've got it, it felt like speeking a language you mastered.
We are literally commanding machines here — and problems of high complexity paired with a high level of control usually demand a very precise communication. So while I could e.g. imagine an editing suite which interprets your grunt and edits a bunch of videos for you using AI, you are still losing a level of control there: because the computer has to assume what you are unable to tell it. There is literally no way around it.
Ever wondered why the language used in the military, in an operation room or on a film set is so specialized and hard to understand for amateurs? It is because they need that level of control to communicate in order to get the desired result.