The Intelligent Use of Computers

I was thinking about programming the other day.

I know that programming is a word with lots of meaning, and one of the ones that I don't mean is when you create a marketing program that uses bright, glossy magazines. I don't like those, because they tend to act as if all they have to show is bright, smiling faces, and I'll think Gee, I'd sure like some-o-DAT! Gives glossy a bad name.

Which is why I am always surprised to find that I not only like the brand magazine that the Chrysler Corporation puts out -- though I think, based on the masthead (and how come its called the masthead? Sounds nautical...) that it's actually published by Meredith Publishing, with content supplied by Chrysler -- but that the magazine is effective at what it is trying to do -- ie, it predispoes me to think kindly of Chrysler, especially when it comes to buying a new vehicle. Its unquestionably a marketing tool, but its well done. I usually admire things that are well done, particularly hamburgers.

But that isn't what I was thinking about.

The programming that I was thinking about has to do with the art and science of making a computer do things for you so that you don't have to do them yourself. I call myself a programmer, but that's not true. It used to be, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and presidential candidates were always assumed to be upright, forthright, and truthful, but it hasn't been true for years. Decades.

This is what I want. I have to log on to multiple remote sites every couple of months, just to make sure that my password is up to date. By multiple, I mean something on the order of ninety or a hundred. The process is just about the same in each case. I make a connection to my company's network. I either select the system I want directly from a menu, or I select an entry from the menu that brings me to a logon screen, from whence I get another menu, and then I select the system. I give it logon information, which either delivers me into the system I want, or delivers me to yet another menu from whence.... and so on. If the password has to be changed, I change it, and I write it down on the special supersecret spreadsheet I keep with all of my ids and password. And then I sign off again.

This is incredibobbly tedious. Repetitive, done the same way each time. Prime meat for a computer.

Now, I will bet serious money that there is, somewhere, a programming language that is powerful enough to automate this... and simple enough that someone like me can use it. Kind of like what Visual Basic was like, when it first started. Something truly simple. Even Java, I regret to say, is beyond me.

If I could find a package like that -- and it wasn't too expensive -- I'd buy it, use it, and propagate the idea to the people I work with, who all have the same onerous problem.

Because I really do believe in the slogan that a company I used to work for used:

The Intelligent Use of Computers.

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