Ming: Klytus, I'm bored. What plaything can you offer me today?
Klytus: An obscure body in the S-K system. The inhabitants refer to it as the planet...Earth.
Ming: How peaceful it looks...[Causes an earthquake.]
Klytus: Most effective, Your Majesty. Will you destroy this...ah...Earth?
Ming: Later. I like to play with things a while, before annihilation. - Flash Gordon (1980)
Nearly four years ago, I wrote an essay called The Little Coder’s Predicament. It’s not too unusual. Lots of others like it have been written. The point is: programming just isn’t available to people like it was with the Commodore 64.