GLXFramework

Todd Geist todd at geistinteractive.com
Wed May 4 16:08:13 EDT 2011


On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 12:35 PM, J. Landman Gay <jacque at hyperactivesw.com>wrote:

>
> The final argument against an official framework is that people would tend
> to use it without understanding the underlying concepts involved. Once you
> have those, building an app isn't really that difficult.
>

Hi Jacque,

I am not really arguing for an official Framework with a capital "F", just a
well supported one.  RunRev has already has lots to do just make changes to
the engine so this kind of framework would be easier to build.

But I fundamentally disagree with the idea that you have to understand the
underlying concepts to use a framework or anything for that matter.

First when it comes to learning something new. One of the best ways to learn
about the underlying concepts involved in something is by taking a part a
fully functioning something (application, car, computer, toaster, clock, etc
) tweaking it and seeing what happens.  It is far easier to learn how a car
works by starting with a working car, then trying to build one from a box
full of spare parts.

Second, that idea flies in the face of some of the most important principles
of software design.  Modern software design is all about code re-use. Even
with the best most efficient language, one person will never keep up with a
team of programmers who can efficiently share code.  There are just a
limited number of keystrokes you can make in a day.

Shareable reusable code is all about packaging it up in such a way that the
other person does not need to know how it WORKS.  They just need to know how
to USE it.  This is a huge difference.

Third, But of course we all intuitively know this don't we? Live Code is
just one layer on top of several other layers that play out as little pulses
of energy across silicon wafers.  I am willing to bet that there very few
people in the world who understand all the underlying concepts that allow
the Live Code runtime to do what it does.  In fact there may not be any one
person who really understands every piece of that puzzle.  Yet by all
accounts many people use Live Code everyday.

Even more obviously, how many of us understand all of the underlying
concepts involved in a car's electronic, multi-port, fuel injected
acceleration control system?

Yet we all know that when we step on the gas.

Todd



Todd Geist
------------------------------
geist interactive <http://www.geistinteractive.com>
805-419-9382



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