You're really arguing against a straw man or a few of them. In other words, I wasn't trying to say that we should create programs without using any text or by drawing. Or that we should communicate without text.
Obviously, text is going to be important for programming. What I am saying is that the definition that programming only happens when you are writing textual source code is wrong and holding us back.
Start with the idea of intellisense or autocompletion for method/function call names and parameters. If this happens inline in the text editor, we are still programming, right? What if my intellisense/help for parameters etc. pops up in a box on the screen? What if it is a dialog with a description of the method, and descriptions of each parameter? Now what happens if for each boolean or enum, I have drop downs or check boxes? Now what happens if I can drag functions out of a toolbox into my code window?
What happens if I can also drag entire components into my project window and connect them to my database structure editor? But now I can also type some code into part of the editor to create some custom functionality. Am I programming? What if I didn't have to type any custom code at all? Am I still programming? I didn't write any code, I just dragged and dropped, checked some boxes and connected some components.
For as long as I remember IDEs have had said drag-and-drop interfaces, usually centered around the coding of GUIs, and no one has said that just because an IDE has a visual form editor it's not programming.
You're the one making up the distinction and arguing against it.
The primary reason that not everything has turned into a drag-and-drop interface is that it's highly inefficient. It remains a fact that compared to manually hunting for class Socket in tab bars and scrollable lists, just so I can drag it and drop it somewhere, it's far easier to just use your keyboard and type "new Socket" in your code, especially with autocompletion at your service.
Obviously, text is going to be important for programming. What I am saying is that the definition that programming only happens when you are writing textual source code is wrong and holding us back.
Start with the idea of intellisense or autocompletion for method/function call names and parameters. If this happens inline in the text editor, we are still programming, right? What if my intellisense/help for parameters etc. pops up in a box on the screen? What if it is a dialog with a description of the method, and descriptions of each parameter? Now what happens if for each boolean or enum, I have drop downs or check boxes? Now what happens if I can drag functions out of a toolbox into my code window?
What happens if I can also drag entire components into my project window and connect them to my database structure editor? But now I can also type some code into part of the editor to create some custom functionality. Am I programming? What if I didn't have to type any custom code at all? Am I still programming? I didn't write any code, I just dragged and dropped, checked some boxes and connected some components.