Developing Android Apps Visually, In 3 parts

An anonymous reader writes "Dr. Dobb's has a three-part blog (all three parts are up; this is part 1) about using App Inventor. The focus isn't so much on the technology but rather the discussion of 'can visual development let anyone program?' If so, is App Inventor really visual development? And should we be teaching real programmers about visual development. Most of the conclusions are in part 3. As a byproduct, they show you how to put App Inventor output on the Market and there are two games on the market (free) that resulted from the articles." Here's part two, to round out the trilogy.

Real programmers...

[syousef]

...don't use visual tools. They describe the GUI in assembly language, or use torturous frameworks. Of course it is this elitist attitude of making things as difficult as possible that has resulted in 2 decades of user experience that stinks. I don't know how many times I've seen programmers rant that Visual Basic was evil because it was too easy and let anyone program. They somehow think putting together a user form should require 2 weeks and multiple degrees in computer science. On the contrary, it should be ridiculously simple to throw together a user form. There are things you can't simplify like algorithms and complex logic in science and business and THAT is where you NEED to focus and concentrate a developer's attention. Bloated frameworks and non-visual building tools from hell that make things unnecessarily hard are nothing but a hindrance and should be eliminated. There's no shortage of work to go around.

Re:Not worth it

[Nerdfest]

It's very sad that this is tagged 'troll'. It's currently a fact of development that will likely be addresses in a future iOS release. People are getting a little defensive about their choice of platform. If you want them to improve, help identify their flaws and stop blindly defending them. There's a pile of things that need fixing in all of them.