I have a dream. A dream that one day, we will remove the shackles of syntax. We will stop living in the punchcard era of programming. Object-oriented will really mean visual on-screen manifestations, not junk compartmentalized in curly braces. We will stop putting the security of our computers at risk by programming everything in low-level languages. We will stop trying to abstract low-level and high-level languages by creating yet more complicated languages. We will stop using those scripting languages that function like they were created by aliens. We will give up on static typed variables, pointers, and other memory management concepts unnecessary in the 21st century. We will end the possibility of buffer overflows. We will stop the compiler errors. We will end the garbage strike. We will revolt against the Hungarians. We will stop using camels, and instead use spaces. We won’t have to memorize or rely on autocomplete. We will put logic together visually, instead of just typing code. We will truly collaborate in realtime, instead of merging and versioning. We will develop on web browsers, in the cloud. We will develop easily on a touchscreen; the keyboard won’t hold us back. We will stop writing the same code over and over again, and instead make others’ libraries easy to use and share. We will separate programming languages from software development. We will stop worrying about MVC and instead ask why the separation isn’t natural. We will bestow the power of development to frontend designers who are worthy. We will stop worrying about which language is ugly or pretty, and instead worry about why we even need languages. We will stop making programming more difficult than it needs to be. We will stop over-engineering software and go back to the KISS rule, like designers have already figured out. We will stop celebrating “clever” solutions that no other programmer understands. We will make code read more like a flowchart, and less like ASCII vomit. We will stop creating bugs and memory leaks. We will make software impossible to freeze and crash. We will modularize visually. We will create development environments so abstracted from code, it will make Python look like Assembly. We will stop creating hundreds of languages that keep failing to make our jobs easier. We will finally merge the desktop and web. We will make programming so accessible, anybody can do it. We will stop working in cubicles and instead work from the cloud. We will merge design and development. We will make programming an art again. We will make programming cool again, and not just for analytical, lispy grumps with Aspergers. We will end the seemingly endless best practices arguments. We will abolish tabs, semicolons, and braces. By the end of the decade, we need to make this happen. We must be the last developers that ever have to suffer under 1950s programming paradigms. We will go free. We MUST go free.

Flame on, lispy grumps. 🙂