"The current state of painting sucks. You have to figure out which colour mixes with which colour to become what. You have to learn how to hold the brush and what different brushes do. you have to learn different strokes. It shouldn't be like that at all, you shouldn't have to LEARN all those arcane things at all. People have been doing it for CENTURIES and they are unwilling to change due to some perverse pride in all of this. What should be, is that you think of a pretty picture and tada! It appears on Canvas. Without you going through the process of actually making it"
Nobody seems to be giving the author the benefit of the doubt - so I'll play devils advocate against your analogy.
"The current state of painting as a way to capture images sucks. It takes years of practice, and even then the likeness created is only ok unless you're a true master. There's this area of research around lenses and films that professional painters seem to scoff at - but I really think we could be doing profoundly better if we can get it working."
Hahah funny thing is I had these thoughts as i typed my last reply.
Btw it's rather interesting how the same cycle begins in photography where old school photographers scoff at post-capture editing via photoshop and say that it takes away from the beauty of the art. So maybe even if we get visual programming, maybe things won't change...
But still, I gotta ask, how can you learn programming without learning HOW to program? The HOW is where code comes in. Yes, we'd all love the magic of making the computer do as you wish with a point of a finger. But until then, why not enjoy the process of taking a problem, thinking of a solution and figuring out how to explain that to the computer?
That's is the Author's viewpoint.