Programming for the Masses

I found "Software Development Evolution toward product design" in Lost Garden making the right steps but fails to go all the way: telling the users do it themselves.

I like the car repair or home improvement model where you can hire pros but you can also do it yourself with the right tools and/or training. Programming should be just as straight forward: if you choose, you can do it yourself: bug fix, enhancements, optimization, you name it.

A programming system that allows one to change the underlying software itself would be a good step towards empowering the users. Smalltalk has a good foundation but something about it makes it less "useful" than, say, Java. At least it hasn't gained tractions among most programmers (C++ and Java seem to cover most paid programming jobs -- I mean stand alone programming, not scripting (I lump SQL here) or web programming).

The next step is to enable users to transform programs written in other languages (i.e., created normal way) with all those pisky EULA and bug fix and enhance them. Things like simulators would become handy but to what extent I'm not sure yet. Stay tuned!