These paradigm changes have greatly increased my power to express program
logic, such that my programs have gotten smaller, simpler, and much easier to
understand, while supporting ever-increasing user capabilities. When I
started programming, I worked with simple command-line interfaces and
text-based “green screens.” Next I produced “fat-client” graphical
user interfaces, and now I work on Web-enabled user interfaces. Again, each
paradigm switch has greatly increased user power, flexibility, and ease of
use while the code required to produce the interfaces has decreased and is
much simpler to understand.
Data Storage and Retrieval Problems
Unfortunately, I haven’t seen the same kinds of advances in data retrieval
and storage. In fact, I think we’ve declined in that area as an increasing
number of data source/data sink technologies such as XML, guaranteed
messagin... (more)