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Every time a VPL (Visual Programming Language) has gone against a TPL (text programming language) , VPL not only has come out a winner it has massacred its oppo

by kilon 9y ago

Every time a VPL (Visual Programming Language) has gone against a TPL (text programming language) , VPL not only has come out a winner it has massacred its opponent. There are 3 areas that I am aware of that VPLs have appeared a) modular audio synthesis b) 3d graphics c) game programming (a) has been the first with origins back to 1995 , there are like a ton of programming apis for building modular synthesizers , there even programming languages that specialize in this that have existed for decades now like CSOUND and Supercolider but Reaktor and Max/MSP have literally mopolised the market. Reaktor itself has been such a massive success that made Native Instrument as the dominant company on audio software. (b) 3d graphics is no secret that is probably the richest software industry with the generation of the well knows CGI for films and games its a goldmine for developers and has been dominated by VPLs. You are not aware of this most likely because we never refer to them as VPL but rather as procedural material, textures, animation etc. Not using a VPL for todays standards is considered insane even if you try to do it via a very lovable language like Python. Text languages like POV RAY that specialize in 3d graphics have died a miserable death. 3d is where TPLs go to die and are used strictly for generating the software alone and thats about it. (c) computer games there VPLs are something new but Unreal has definitely changed that with Blueprints. Probably the best and most powerful VPL. If you have played any kind of AAA game chances are that the game you played uses Unreal which in turn makes heavy usage of Blueprints and C++ code. The rule of thumb among Unreal developers is "Do it with Blueprint and if you cannot avoid it do it with C++". Unity has smelled the roses and has implement its own VPL as well very similar to Blueprints. So if VPLs are so amazing why we do not see more of them ? They are actually very hard to make. If an implementation of lisp , a basic one, needs a few hundreds lines of code a VPL needs thousands and that imposes a high barrier for language designers. Hence why we have thousands of TPL and only a handful of VPLs. The majority of them are crappy obviously because that is how quality works , you have to have high quantity for high quality. But a high quality VPL will kick high quality TPL ass any day and this is why VPLs are massively more popular than TPLs for the same task. One that does not work as well as it looks and it depends on drag and drop is a crappy VPL . Yes a crappy VPL will suck, not as much as a crappy TPL (see C++ , Javascript etc) but it will suck none the less. you can also read my quora answer here for more details why VPLs dominate so easily and why they will replace TPLs in the not so distant future to a very large extend https://www.quora.com/Why-did-graphical-programming-languages-never-really-%E2%80%9Ctake-off%E2%80%9D https://www.quora.com/Why-did-graphical-programming-language...

zaphar 9y ago
You're cherrypicking examples and ignoring counter examples. Yes VPL's in specific niche areas have been useful and largely beaten there competitors. But I know of no general purpose VPL that had succeeded in beating a text only competitor. Text is superior for general purpose languages because it sits in the sweet spot for information density vs ease of use.
- kilon 9y ago
  Yes and Yes. VPLs are indeed specific purpose and its because of information density. Contrary to what you may believe a VPL is not the evolution of TPL , its actually the evolution of GUI. Reaktor for example is an evolution of VSTs , synthesiser and audio effect plugins that are GUIs. VPLs in 3d are an evolution of the gui properties for material , textures etc (they are not even referred to as VPL). Even in Unreal even though Blueprint has replaced Unrealscript , its an extension of the editor GUI. VPLs are successful specifically because the information density is so large that a linear GUI is not enough. The success of TPL is legacy, its just has a lot of libraries. Mainly because its easier to make and has been around a lot longer. However to be sincere here when we talk about TPLs we also cherrypick , we do not think of Assembly, Pascal, Cobol and Fortran but rather C/C++ , Java, C#, ruby, Python and Javascript. The truth is that 99.9% of TPLs have failed to gain approval of not just the users but also the coders too. But I am not denying the fact that a TPL will target mostly pro coders than users and that VPL will target mostly users than coders. They are just different kinds of beasts making the comparison more than challenging.
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eriknstr 9y ago
Poor form of the people who downvoted parent. I don't agree with parent but they are contributing to the conversation. If you disagree why don't you provide some counter-points instead. Here, let me start. > Every time a VPL (Visual Programming Language) has gone against a TPL (text programming language) , VPL not only has come out a winner it has massacred its opponent. That's an unsubstantiated claim. Point to some sources please. > There are 3 areas that I am aware of that VPLs have appeared a) modular audio synthesis b) 3d graphics c) game programming These are not the only ones [1], and VPL first appeared earlier than 1995. For example, the first version of LabView was released in 1986 [2] and certainly LabView was not the first one either. > 3d is where TPLs go to die and are used strictly for generating the software alone and thats about it. Even if this is true in the case of VFX (which I don't know that it is but I don't know that it's not either), it certainly is not true in video game development, which is very much an area of 3d graphics. > computer games there VPLs are something new but Unreal has definitely changed that with Blueprints Blueprints is awesome but you could not TODAY make an arbitrary game implemented using ONLY blueprints and have the amount of control and freedom you have if you use Unreal or another game engine with C++ or another TPL. Thus falls your initial claim, which (quoted above also) was > Every time a VPL (Visual Programming Language) has gone against a TPL (text programming language) , VPL not only has come out a winner it has massacred its opponent. And I bet that others can point to a wide range of areas where an existing VPL will come up short. Some people love LabView. I certainly don't. Some prefer it and for them it's a thousand times better than using a TPL but for me 99% of the time I would go with a TPL over LabView. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_programming_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_programming_language [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LabVIEW https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LabVIEW

by kilon 9y ago

zaphar 9y ago

You're cherrypicking examples and ignoring counter examples. Yes VPL's in specific niche areas have been useful and largely beaten there competitors. But I know of no general purpose VPL that had succeeded in beating a text only competitor. Text is superior for general purpose languages because it sits in the sweet spot for information density vs ease of use.

kilon 9y ago
Yes and Yes. VPLs are indeed specific purpose and its because of information density. Contrary to what you may believe a VPL is not the evolution of TPL , its actually the evolution of GUI. Reaktor for example is an evolution of VSTs , synthesiser and audio effect plugins that are GUIs. VPLs in 3d are an evolution of the gui properties for material , textures etc (they are not even referred to as VPL). Even in Unreal even though Blueprint has replaced Unrealscript , its an extension of the editor GUI. VPLs are successful specifically because the information density is so large that a linear GUI is not enough. The success of TPL is legacy, its just has a lot of libraries. Mainly because its easier to make and has been around a lot longer. However to be sincere here when we talk about TPLs we also cherrypick , we do not think of Assembly, Pascal, Cobol and Fortran but rather C/C++ , Java, C#, ruby, Python and Javascript. The truth is that 99.9% of TPLs have failed to gain approval of not just the users but also the coders too. But I am not denying the fact that a TPL will target mostly pro coders than users and that VPL will target mostly users than coders. They are just different kinds of beasts making the comparison more than challenging.
- deleted 9y ago
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eriknstr 9y ago

Poor form of the people who downvoted parent. I don't agree with parent but they are contributing to the conversation. If you disagree why don't you provide some counter-points instead. Here, let me start. > Every time a VPL (Visual Programming Language) has gone against a TPL (text programming language) , VPL not only has come out a winner it has massacred its opponent. That's an unsubstantiated claim. Point to some sources please. > There are 3 areas that I am aware of that VPLs have appeared a) modular audio synthesis b) 3d graphics c) game programming These are not the only ones [1], and VPL first appeared earlier than 1995. For example, the first version of LabView was released in 1986 [2] and certainly LabView was not the first one either. > 3d is where TPLs go to die and are used strictly for generating the software alone and thats about it. Even if this is true in the case of VFX (which I don't know that it is but I don't know that it's not either), it certainly is not true in video game development, which is very much an area of 3d graphics. > computer games there VPLs are something new but Unreal has definitely changed that with Blueprints Blueprints is awesome but you could not TODAY make an arbitrary game implemented using ONLY blueprints and have the amount of control and freedom you have if you use Unreal or another game engine with C++ or another TPL. Thus falls your initial claim, which (quoted above also) was > Every time a VPL (Visual Programming Language) has gone against a TPL (text programming language) , VPL not only has come out a winner it has massacred its opponent. And I bet that others can point to a wide range of areas where an existing VPL will come up short. Some people love LabView. I certainly don't. Some prefer it and for them it's a thousand times better than using a TPL but for me 99% of the time I would go with a TPL over LabView. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_programming_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_programming_language [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LabVIEW https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LabVIEW