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> I'm sort of losing hope that it isn't a gimmick or fad Visual coding is huge among people who aren't technical. I first got into "programming" when I was 9,

> I'm sort of losing hope that it isn't a gimmick or fad Visual coding is huge among people who aren't technical. I first got into "programming" when I was 9, through lego robots, they had a visual control flow thingy, basically visual coding. I think that must have helped me understand programming and its implications much faster when I got into college. Visual programming is not ergonomic enough to justify never writing code again. It will remain a paramount educational tool, and a great tool for designers and game developers. I believe people do use visual programming for Unreal projects (Unity, maybe?), textures, effects, etc. I don't think it is aesthetic enough right now to get the masses into it. Visual programming will eventually be important in getting people to do more complex things on the web (think IFTTT).

seanmcdirmid 9y ago
Just a correction: you are writing code with visual programming, its just visual code instead of textual code. You haven't gotten rid of code. VPLs are great for people who aren't programmers and don't wan to be programmers; e.g. Facebook designers using Quartz Composer or Orgami, game designers using Unreal blueprints, Blender, and so on.
- anonytrary 9y ago
  To be very pedantic, the context makes it clear I'm using "code" as shorthand to refer only to written programs. True, visual code may well be a first class citizen in programming. As of today, there are still programs people would not write visually. It's a tool for simple procedural work, which could change as the ergonomics get even better.
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    There are codeless visual programming methods, like Pygmalion and Sketchpad, among others. So we shouldn't get confused with them.
    - anonytrary 9y ago
      Visual programming: Drag and drop nodes and edges to form a control-flow/compute graph. Code: Python, JS, C++, etc. I don't think this is confusing for our readers at all.
Lxr 9y ago
Was it Lego Mindstorms? Man I had so much fun with that as a kid. I would totally recommend it for learning to code too.
- anonytrary 9y ago
  Yep, that's the one.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago

Just a correction: you are writing code with visual programming, its just visual code instead of textual code. You haven't gotten rid of code. VPLs are great for people who aren't programmers and don't wan to be programmers; e.g. Facebook designers using Quartz Composer or Orgami, game designers using Unreal blueprints, Blender, and so on.

anonytrary 9y ago
To be very pedantic, the context makes it clear I'm using "code" as shorthand to refer only to written programs. True, visual code may well be a first class citizen in programming. As of today, there are still programs people would not write visually. It's a tool for simple procedural work, which could change as the ergonomics get even better.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  There are codeless visual programming methods, like Pygmalion and Sketchpad, among others. So we shouldn't get confused with them.
  - anonytrary 9y ago
    Visual programming: Drag and drop nodes and edges to form a control-flow/compute graph. Code: Python, JS, C++, etc. I don't think this is confusing for our readers at all.

Lxr 9y ago

Was it Lego Mindstorms? Man I had so much fun with that as a kid. I would totally recommend it for learning to code too.

anonytrary 9y ago
Yep, that's the one.