The big improvement in programming forty years ago

Programming has been around since the beginning of computers, and seen lots of improvements: symbolic assembly, high-level compilers (COBOL and FORTRAN), structured programming (Pascal), object-oriented programming (Smalltalk, C++), virtual machines (Java, C#), scripting languages (Perl, Python, Ruby)... the list goes on.

Yet a significant improvement in programming occurred forty years ago. It made programming simple -- so simple that a non-programmer could do it. And it was ignored by the programming community.

That improvement was... the electronic spreadsheet.

Programming, at its core, is the organization of data and the processing of that data with a sequence of instructions. The niceties of data structures, objects, and just-in-time compilation are just that: niceties. They are there for the convenience of the programmer.

So how do spreadsheets come into it? Spreadsheets, at their core, organize data and process that data with a series of instructions. (Sound familiar?)

Spreadsheets -- the basic grid of numbers and formulas, without the charts, pivot tables, and VBA code -- are programs. Any spreadsheet can be converted into just about any language, from Fortran or BASIC to Java or Python. (The reverse is not true; only a few simple programs in BASIC or Python can be converted into spreadsheets.)

The improvement that spreadsheets made to programming was immediacy. The "programmer" could see the results of a change right after making a change. That immediate feedback was not available in compiled languages, which require the programmer to save the file, compile the program, and then run it. (IDEs like Turbo Pascal and Visual Studio make those steps easy, but there is still a delay.) Even interpreted languages like BASIC or Ruby require the steps of saving and running.

This improvement in programming, the immediate results of a change in the program, went unnoticed by the programming community. Visicalc was created in 1979, almost forty years ago. At the time, popular programming languages were BASIC, COBOL, Fortran, and Pascal.

Instead of building on the innovation of the spreadsheet, programmers have gone in other directions. Programmers focused on maintainability (structured programming), larger programs (object-oriented programming), version control, automated testing, and response to changing requirements (agile methods).

There has been no (or very little) effort for the immediate feedback that we get with spreadsheets.

For forty years.

At some point, we are going to invent a new programming language, one that provides immediate feedback. (Perhaps a language, editor, and run-time environment, which is what a spreadsheet is.) The advantages are great, as anyone who works with a spreadsheet can attest.