The Chorus project is exploring the middle ground between spreadsheets and programming. Current programming technology demands great expertise, discouraging the creation of a vast range of simple software applications. It need not be so. We take hope from pre-internet products like VisualBasic and HyperCard that brought programming to many non-experts. We want to pick up where those forerunners left off and make modern internet application programming almost as easy as using a spreadsheet. To achieve that goal we are willing to sacrifice power, compatibility, performance, and even the sacred traditions of programming culture.
We are focusing on mobile social apps: simple cloud applications running on phones that organize groups, for example a book club, a soccer league, or an office workflow. Our modest strategy is to develop a product with unique value to non-programmers that is a viral vector for a dramatically simplified programming experience. The underlying programming language is Subtext.