[tsimionescu]

This is all complaining about the insignificant problems of programming. Syntax is something you get over after you're out of school. A good Java programmer will also be a good Common Lisp or C or APL programmer within months of first seeing that language.

The complexity of programming lies in coming up with abstract models for real-life problems, and in encoding those models in sufficient details for a machine to execute them. It also lies in knowing the details of how the machine functions to be able to achieve performance or other goals (e.g. avoid parallelism pitfalls). Until we have AGI, none of these problems are even in principle solvable with better tools to the point that someone who hasn't invested in learning how to program for a few years will be able to do anything that isn't trivial. The best possible visual PL can't change this one iota.

What could be doable is creating more DSLs for laypeople to learn, rather than trying to do very complex things through a GUI. One of the few areas where there has been tremendous success in having non-programmers actually do some programming is in stuff like Excel. That is a very purpose-built system, with clear feedback on the steps of computation, very limitted in what you can actually program, but comprehensive enough for its intended domain, and is probably by far the most utilized programming environment, dwarfing something like vim by an order of magnitude.

[asdff]

>This is all complaining about the insignificant problems of programming

To me, syntax is a huge problem. Sure, you learn it in school. Computer Science School. Not everyone is a computer scientist. Some people are political scientists, environmental scientists, mathematicians, statisticians, etc., all of whom have their own difficult four years of schooling, and simply don't have the time to learn this complicated syntax without trading something else off. You don't think its a big deal since you've already paid that price of time. Well, not everyone can afford to pay that time, and it's a damn shame that in order to make full use of all a computer can do, you need to spend this time learning this sometimes remarkably clunky syntax before you can even begin to work on your real life problem. Imagine how much more technological and societal progress we would make if everyone could make computational models about their question at hand without having to spend years and thousands of dollars working with unrelated example data in undergrad, sometimes even using instructional languages that have no use outside of school. To me, that's the world that The Jetson's live in.