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We find visual based programming in the form of CAD used in construction, aviation, semiconductors, etc. They are big complex programs and, of course, expensiv
by CyberFonic 15y ago
We find visual based programming in the form of CAD used in construction, aviation, semiconductors, etc. They are big complex programs and, of course, expensive. If you can use visual tools to layout billions of transistors, then you could use it to write programs. But ... the techniques for moving between levels of abstraction in software haven't been understood yet. Systems like Scratch and Alice provide visual programming, but quickly become tedious for all but the simplest programs because they don't allow us to introduce multiple levels of abstraction. The CAD systems used for semiconductor design encompass hundreds of different views, each for addressing specific engineering issues.
There is quite a lot of research going on with visual programming, but the return on effort in most cases is most discouraging.
- ippisl 15y agoDoesn't the reason you use visual representations in CAD, construction , aviation and layout is to be close to the domain ? i.e. visual objects. A second reason is that higher level languages for mechanical design hasn't been successful. my guess it's because mechanical objects are very cost sensitive, so people use low level tools, similar to embedded developers using c+asm. On the other hand , if you look at fpga and chip design , where complexity has exploded and transistors price really plummeted , you see a move to higher and higher level textual languages, from the schematic systems used in the past. Another interesting use case for visual languages is visual domain specific languages. metacase has some success with this. my guess is that visual languages can be much easier for domain experts to use and understand, in some cases.