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What would be the point of this? I think many seasoned programmers forget that for the non-programmer, syntax is a sizeable impediment to getting a working pro

What would be the point of this? I think many seasoned programmers forget that for the non-programmer, syntax is a sizeable impediment to getting a working program and so I'd imagine removing syntax as a source of errors would open up programming to more people. Sure, you can come up with a more general purpose visual esolang (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric_programming_language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric_programming_language) but how would this match the efficiency of programming in, say, C? I don't think this comparison makes sense — how can you compare the efficiency of a programming environment to that of a programming language?

Jun8 16y ago
An analogy with natural languages may be useful: there are no languages without syntax, i.e. no completely visual (ideographic) ones, except for simplistic signage domains, e.g. signs in airports, traffic signs, etc. The reason for this is: if you push aside syntax, there is very little expressive power left in a language. The prog lang space mirrors this behavior well, I think: you have very specialized languages, like kudo, but developing a visual language with enough expressive power to be general is very hard, not to say impossible. I didn't understand your point about a "programming environment"
- andrewtj 16y ago
  The comparison you asked for is that of an apple and an orange. I think you may have also misunderstood my comment on syntax — I wrote "removing syntax as a source of errors" not "remove syntax".
  - extension 16y ago
    But then aren't you just replacing syntax errors with "why can't I attach this visual thingy to that visual thingy"? Either way, they the essence of what they need to learn is the same: translate their ideas into a weird language. I'm not convinced that fitting shapes together is more helpful in that regard than a parser with good error messages and an IDE that does syntax coloring and code completion.
    - andrewtj 16y ago
      But then aren't you just replacing syntax errors with "why can't I attach this visual thingy to that visual thingy"? Yes — the idea being to replace syntax and/or logic errors with just logic errors. Either way, they the essence of what they need to learn is the same: translate their ideas into a weird language. I'm not convinced that fitting shapes together is more helpful in that regard than a parser with good error messages and an IDE that does syntax coloring and code completion. I seem to be the only one for whom the words "visual programming" don't conjure an image of weird shapes and diagrams — but I've already said that http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1496529 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1496529
barrkel 16y ago
Many non-programmers get around this by relying on learning by example, most notably by copy-and-paste code, with minor adjustments of the parameters, in a kind of cargo cult style. But even this is more awkward with visual languages; it's far harder to e.g. do web searches, ask for help on forums, etc.
- andrewtj 16y ago
  I don't think visual necessarily implies non-textual. I remember once seeing an old terminal app used by an airline that would allow you to escape the bounds of the input area if you used the arrow keys. You could literally type anywhere on the terminal which as you'd expect, effectively trashed the session till it was reset. The analogy I'd draw is that programming in most editors is like that terminal app, you can do anything even if it's totally illogical and breaks horribly. When I read the question posed at the end of the article, the image that came to mind wasn't a pointy-clicky diagram monstrosity but more of an Intellisense with a tight input guard and strong visual delineation of blocks; a Python with even tighter structural rules rather than a UML on steroids.

Jun8 16y ago

An analogy with natural languages may be useful: there are no languages without syntax, i.e. no completely visual (ideographic) ones, except for simplistic signage domains, e.g. signs in airports, traffic signs, etc. The reason for this is: if you push aside syntax, there is very little expressive power left in a language. The prog lang space mirrors this behavior well, I think: you have very specialized languages, like kudo, but developing a visual language with enough expressive power to be general is very hard, not to say impossible. I didn't understand your point about a "programming environment"

andrewtj 16y ago
The comparison you asked for is that of an apple and an orange. I think you may have also misunderstood my comment on syntax — I wrote "removing syntax as a source of errors" not "remove syntax".
- extension 16y ago
  But then aren't you just replacing syntax errors with "why can't I attach this visual thingy to that visual thingy"? Either way, they the essence of what they need to learn is the same: translate their ideas into a weird language. I'm not convinced that fitting shapes together is more helpful in that regard than a parser with good error messages and an IDE that does syntax coloring and code completion.
  - andrewtj 16y ago
    But then aren't you just replacing syntax errors with "why can't I attach this visual thingy to that visual thingy"? Yes — the idea being to replace syntax and/or logic errors with just logic errors. Either way, they the essence of what they need to learn is the same: translate their ideas into a weird language. I'm not convinced that fitting shapes together is more helpful in that regard than a parser with good error messages and an IDE that does syntax coloring and code completion. I seem to be the only one for whom the words "visual programming" don't conjure an image of weird shapes and diagrams — but I've already said that http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1496529 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1496529

barrkel 16y ago

Many non-programmers get around this by relying on learning by example, most notably by copy-and-paste code, with minor adjustments of the parameters, in a kind of cargo cult style. But even this is more awkward with visual languages; it's far harder to e.g. do web searches, ask for help on forums, etc.

andrewtj 16y ago
I don't think visual necessarily implies non-textual. I remember once seeing an old terminal app used by an airline that would allow you to escape the bounds of the input area if you used the arrow keys. You could literally type anywhere on the terminal which as you'd expect, effectively trashed the session till it was reset. The analogy I'd draw is that programming in most editors is like that terminal app, you can do anything even if it's totally illogical and breaks horribly. When I read the question posed at the end of the article, the image that came to mind wasn't a pointy-clicky diagram monstrosity but more of an Intellisense with a tight input guard and strong visual delineation of blocks; a Python with even tighter structural rules rather than a UML on steroids.