Accessibility is All: For the Hundred-Year Language

I mostly agree with Paul Graham. In fact, the author raises some interesting points, which concludes in a grounded invitation to anyone to imagine and implement such a keystone language. Regarding what I agree with, this has to be his ideas about a minimal, yet just sufficiently-enough, language founded on the least amount of core axioms. I believe this is wise; these axioms, after all, are rules. And as rules do, the more these rules exist, the more they bound possibilities, the last of which must not be impeded if we are to really conceive a language that can do all: a language that just focuses on implementation, and doesn’t get in the way of the mind.

I agree with him because what, I believe, he correctly diagnoses is the need of greater accessibility. But the accessibility he is talking about is an accessibility of thinking, which is great! The kind of accessibility I would like to talk about, though, is about language and other skills. I think this so-called “hundred-year (programming) language” must be language-blind; that is, this programming language should not write itself exclusively in one language, historically English, to define its constructs. Perhaps the author can’t see it because he hasn’t been bothered by this; good for him, but not for the rest of the world.

Another “feature” this language must account for is accessibility of other skills and senses. With this I mean to say that this language must take into consideration the experience of people with disabilities and who wish to program. Indeed, maybe this doesn’t relate to the language itself, but it does involve its presentation in such tools as IDEs. A way to do this is focusing on showing rather than saying; sometimes, it is easier to explain something by picturing it rather than describing it: the lexical and semantic rules must be clear enough to allow this.

Graham, P. (2003, April). The Hundred-Year Language. Retrieved from: http://www.paulgraham.com/hundred.html