I appreciated the discussion on computer languages, and how a GUI works itself down tot he basic machine language of 1s and 0s. These underlying languages do become transparent in modern software applications that allow non-computer science people to program computers to do powerful things. I think within a few years this trend will continue to the point that manipulating and managing websites will be as easy as manipulating Word documents. What I mean is that anybody, even 90-year-olds who can’t program a VCR can use Word, and in a couple of years I think making websites will be that easy with much less programming bugs then we currently get. In fact, I think word processing documents will cease to exist and we will do all of our composition, collaboration, and publishing in web-based documents. This is starting to happen already with Word web pages, and even Dreamweaver, which to some degree can work like a word processor. However, there are still too many bugs that are introduced through these programs, and if you don’t know web languages, you’re sunk. I think these programs will improve and the bugs will be eliminated until writing HTML is as transparent as writing in Word.
We’re moving in that direction a little bit already with Blogs, which allow non-web designers to create web pages. However, they’re not very powerful yet, and the technology needs to be improved before it can become universally used
