A Glance At Future Of Programming: A Neat But Incomplete Introduction To Coding

Programming is still not for everyone,
the tools are still to primitive, and all to incomplete.

But progress is being made,
and things are changing for better.

There is this very interesting program called Node-RED,
it it hard to appreciate it for what it truly is.

Before I get into details, let me say that node-RED,
is the first in a very powerful class of applications.

The world needs 10 or 20 such programs,
Node-RED is not perfect, but it is worth the while.

On its website it is described as,
"Low-code programming for event-driven applications",

But it is also a program that mixes graphics and code editors,
without needing gigabytes of RAM.

And a visual programming language,
that helps you both, diagram, and type code into friendly little boxes.

What Node-RED, really is,
is a code editor.

And it is a beautiful start to learning programming,
because it represents how all serious programming should work.

The main layout of the program you are working on,
must be a graph that captures the Theory Of Operation.

The meat of a program,
needs to be completely hidden away in well defines spots.

In fact, in is best, that somebody else creates those inner modules,
you should focus on just the layout, and definition of what you need.

Event Driven Applications,
are similar to broadcast towers and radios.

The tower sends out a message,
and things listening to it react to that message.

This is the safest approach to programming,
as programs are always evolving.

Emit Messages and Listen For Specific Ones,
is a pretty flexible surface for future expansion.

And a visual programming language,
puts those towers and listeners on an even surface for all to see.

Event Emitters and Listeners had one problem,
they were hard to keep track of.

Node-RED colorfully,
takes care of that problem.

JavaScript is the language of the future,
and Node-RED, is the code editor of the future.

If you spend a little bit of time with the tiny tutorials,
not only will you learn about programming, but also programming the right way.

Node-RED is still hard to install, and there is no save button, only JSON export,
though there is a Desktop variant.

But once you have node.js on your system,
it is a matter of running npm i node-red and then just run node-red on the command line to start the local server.

I think the best starting point for all this is node.js tutorials,
once you see how npm works, you will be able to get to node-RED, and try out the cook book ideas.

Node-RED teachers programming the right way,
and that means what you learn here will improve your npm modules, and portfolio, and all that.

Right now, the most important thing to take away from Node-RED,
is that there is an emerging space for high level editors.

It is an invitation to learn programming,
and build your own visual programming language and a business empire to match.

Personally, I imagine a module that helps a person new to programming,
set a monetary bounty for a module they need.

Just a handful of video tutorials,
could create a new market and open the world of efficient programming to all.