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"Text-based languages are so 20th century" This is arguably NOT true. Visual languages have consistently failed to match, let alone out-do textual languages fo

by hliyan 8y ago

"Text-based languages are so 20th century" This is arguably NOT true. Visual languages have consistently failed to match, let alone out-do textual languages for decades, and with good reason.

_wmd 8y ago
Would you consider Microsoft Excel a visual language?
- the_duke 8y ago
  Excel is an interesting case. I think it sits between both worlds. The interface and main interaction is visual, yet the actual logic is textual. This seems to hit the sweet spot, making it useful for the non-programmer yet providing significant depth and complexity. Note that personally I hate using plain Excel because the formulas seem so restrictive and the functions I want are never there, but again this seems to be ideal for the target audience.
- hliyan 8y ago
  Excel is cartesian, which is hardly 'graphical'. There are virtually no superfluous graphical detail (e.g. placement of shapes, arrows, thickness etc.) -- the only part of the flexgrid that has semantic meaning is the row and column reference.
  - TuringTest 8y ago
    Giving meaning to coordinates in a 2D chart makes it a graphical language. It certainly is different from conventional languages, which use a tree metaphor (nested expressions) and a linear syntax (everything is considered a long stream of text to be parsed). Using rows and columns instead of code blocks helps a great deal in reducing the cognitive load of having to address every part of the language through an ID, either for variables of functions. Not to mention intermixing code and data values, which is not considered part of conventional languages (though is common in interactive debugging sessions, which are typically considered "visual" debugging).
- 6nf 8y ago
  I'm going to say 'yes'. It's a good question and I think Excel qualifies even though in normal use Excel shows the data but not really the logic / formulas etc.
  - _wmd 8y ago
    Excel succeeds at its job so thoroughly that I think people fail to realize (or cope with the realization) that spreadsheets are probably the most successful democratized programming environment we have. It may not have been intentional, but the 2D grid representation for data interlaced with an acyclic dependency graph is by far superior to any alternative representation, visual or otherwise, I can think of for either of those concepts. Users don't even think about graphs or data, often they don't even understand those terms. Due to this IMHO spreadsheets are pretty much peak computer science
TuringTest 8y ago
Visual languages fare very well for the use cases where they're adequate, and with good reason: dataflow specifications, data mungling, circuit design, and end-user development. The error is thinking that "visual languages" are adequate for the same general purpose as textual languages. But for certain Domain Specific Languages, visual tools can be and have shown themselves to be quite useful.
vectorEQ 8y ago
visual languages are good for very specific domains. look at Reaktor from native instruments, thats something which does work a lot better visually as a lot of the people who need that functionality aren't programmers neccesarily, and programming dsp units is not an easy task. you have applications for visual programming, but often it's very very specific or just purely for educational purposes. (teaching logic can be handy to do visually for some audiences.)

by hliyan 8y ago

"Text-based languages are so 20th century" This is arguably NOT true. Visual languages have consistently failed to match, let alone out-do textual languages for decades, and with good reason.

_wmd 8y ago

Would you consider Microsoft Excel a visual language?

the_duke 8y ago
Excel is an interesting case. I think it sits between both worlds. The interface and main interaction is visual, yet the actual logic is textual. This seems to hit the sweet spot, making it useful for the non-programmer yet providing significant depth and complexity. Note that personally I hate using plain Excel because the formulas seem so restrictive and the functions I want are never there, but again this seems to be ideal for the target audience.
hliyan 8y ago
Excel is cartesian, which is hardly 'graphical'. There are virtually no superfluous graphical detail (e.g. placement of shapes, arrows, thickness etc.) -- the only part of the flexgrid that has semantic meaning is the row and column reference.
- TuringTest 8y ago
  Giving meaning to coordinates in a 2D chart makes it a graphical language. It certainly is different from conventional languages, which use a tree metaphor (nested expressions) and a linear syntax (everything is considered a long stream of text to be parsed). Using rows and columns instead of code blocks helps a great deal in reducing the cognitive load of having to address every part of the language through an ID, either for variables of functions. Not to mention intermixing code and data values, which is not considered part of conventional languages (though is common in interactive debugging sessions, which are typically considered "visual" debugging).
6nf 8y ago
I'm going to say 'yes'. It's a good question and I think Excel qualifies even though in normal use Excel shows the data but not really the logic / formulas etc.
- _wmd 8y ago
  Excel succeeds at its job so thoroughly that I think people fail to realize (or cope with the realization) that spreadsheets are probably the most successful democratized programming environment we have. It may not have been intentional, but the 2D grid representation for data interlaced with an acyclic dependency graph is by far superior to any alternative representation, visual or otherwise, I can think of for either of those concepts. Users don't even think about graphs or data, often they don't even understand those terms. Due to this IMHO spreadsheets are pretty much peak computer science

TuringTest 8y ago

Visual languages fare very well for the use cases where they're adequate, and with good reason: dataflow specifications, data mungling, circuit design, and end-user development. The error is thinking that "visual languages" are adequate for the same general purpose as textual languages. But for certain Domain Specific Languages, visual tools can be and have shown themselves to be quite useful.

vectorEQ 8y ago

visual languages are good for very specific domains. look at Reaktor from native instruments, thats something which does work a lot better visually as a lot of the people who need that functionality aren't programmers neccesarily, and programming dsp units is not an easy task. you have applications for visual programming, but often it's very very specific or just purely for educational purposes. (teaching logic can be handy to do visually for some audiences.)