DataFirst

Quora Answer : What is a disruptive programming language idea?

Dec 3

The next big paradigm has been with us for a while.

But we haven't quite managed to make it practical yet.

It's a paradigm which is a bit like "reactive" programming, a bit like Prolog's inference engine, a bit like event-driven programming, a bit like spreadsheets, a bit like using a "data dictionary" or having schemas written in a business modelling language, even a bit like some "game-maker" systems etc.

Basically it's a paradigm where we tell the overall shape of our program declaratively. The architecture, the data structures, the components etc. And we declaratively describe how they all fit together. How the data-flow topology works.

And then we add a small amount of extra "behaviour" on top.

Today we embed (and lose track of) all the information about data and architecture within imperative or functional code that is optimised for describing behaviour.

But in most programs data is often the bigger issue and something that needs continuous refinement and maintenance. And behaviour is a small part of it.

So we need a paradigm which separates data from behaviour but within the same language. (No awkward extra steps for generating code from schemas, it should all be folded into a single compiler)

I call this "Data First" programming.

I think it's clearly viable. But just needs someone to put the right pieces together in the right way.