This observation really resonates with me. I have spent a lot of energy trying to communicate that ditching formal languages for natural language is a terrible idea in some (most?) domains. The power of formal languages comes precisely from their "limitations".
Software is not the output. The output is the theory-building process by which one arrives a formal description of both the problem and (hopefully) the solution. Avoiding the effort to express a problem (or a model of the problem) in a formal language is a self-defeating enterprise.
Intro to The Napoleon of Notting Hill, by G.K. Chesterton:
"THE human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. And one of the games to which it is most attached is called, "Keep tomorrow dark," and which is also named (by the rustics in Shropshire, I have no doubt) "Cheat the Prophet." The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. They then go and do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun."
In case anyone enjoys reading about the history of control systems,
Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing before Cybernetics by David Mindell is so much fun to read.
Xcode has a Touch Bar simulator and it actually works system-wide-- so if you're developing for the thing and need to get a feel for how Apple's using it, you can.
You do have to update macOS, though-- it's not included in the 10.12.1 build released a few days ago. The build you'll need is linked on Apple's developer site: https://developer.apple.com/macos/touch-bar/
I'm having a little trouble figuring out if this comment was sarcastic or not. Regardless, I think it illustrates pretty clearly why a lot of us are really uninterested in the TouchBar.
In case anyone is interested here is a HN page-mode for Conkeror I wrote a while back: https://github.com/legumbre/hackernews-mode
It makes the site a bit easier to navigate.
Software is not the output. The output is the theory-building process by which one arrives a formal description of both the problem and (hopefully) the solution. Avoiding the effort to express a problem (or a model of the problem) in a formal language is a self-defeating enterprise.
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