Ah! I was hoping somebody had submitted something about subtext.<p>I just finished up my submission today and subtext is relevant to the idea.<p>I'm big on visual tools. From everything I've read and experienced I believe we should be expressing our instructions to computers in a more visual manner.<p>I can get non-programmers to "just get" the tree-view/node highlighting in firebug. Those same people see one hacking at html and wonder aloud how you can have any idea what it all means.<p>I can explain REST to my mother and it just makes sense, but her "programming" experience stops at a spreadsheet.<p>I make the point about the spreadsheet intentionally. A spreadsheet to manage what furniture goes on a shipping container, and in what order based on the distance to deliver is quite a complex set of requirements for an application.<p>But my mother, partner in a small furniture company, does just that sort of thing regularly. I do think there is something to be said for the amazing feats one can undertake when it is required. But I'd really like to make a point about the importance of spacial thinking.<p>When I program I only get one dimension for my instruction set. It goes from the start of the file to the end of the file. I may have some tricky control flow structures, but I still have to represent them in a wholly linear fashion.<p>Whereas my mother, with her spreadsheet gets two spatial dimensions to think in. She can even put multiple planes right next to each other.<p>Our minds are wired to interpret spatial(visual) information. Thats why my mother can easily solve complex, unique problems with a spreadsheet and wouldn't even want to read a "real" program. And yet, if we can allow oureselves some perspective, they are really the same thing. A human's instructions to get a machine to solve problems.<p>I would never expect my mother to create space-shuttle software or anything like that. But she, and I'm sure untold millions like her are better equipped than some programmer to understand the requirements of their business' problems.<p>The spreadsheet was great when computers were for crunching numbers. But in this wild world of the web, I think it's time my mother had a better tool.