Compilers are an interface abstraction

It may be hard for a non-programmer to imagine something as technical as a programming language compiler to be a simplification for users, but it definitely fits the bill.  What’s interesting is that high-level languages have been compiled into assembly code for your CPU to use with really basic instructions, and now it looks like the next wave (part of the Web 2.0 hype) will be to take high-level languages and compile them to a mid-level language, ECMAscript.  And it’s not only happening fast and strong, many companies (Morfik, Google, Microsoft) are now doing it.

Why does that matter to the average user?  In a word, simplification.  If programmers can create good interfaces as quickly (using these tools) as creating bad interfaces, there will be much greater benefit to getting the presentation right.  Look at Google Mail and you can see that it has a number of features not traditionally found in web email clients.  The easier it is to add features and fix interface issues, the faster we will see improvements.

And that’s a good thing.

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