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CGI has used "visual programming" for decades not with great success. Quotes there because it depends on what you consider visual programming. It's not syntax l
by Keyframe 3y ago
CGI has used "visual programming" for decades not with great success. Quotes there because it depends on what you consider visual programming. It's not syntax level minutia as it's more of a functional blocks or expressions even that mutate data from start to end.. which in its essence programming is all about anyways. See Autodesk Flame, Digital Foundry Nuke, SideFX Houdini for examples.
- andybak 3y agoYes - I'm aware of these and have used several. And they all suck in various ways compared to writing code in a capable IDE. I can't imagine a situation where given the choice (and assuming sufficient familiarity to be fluent) I would choose a node-based system over writing code. As I said earlier - the main advantage is discoverability (plus a certain robustness against making errors which arise from the constraints). Discoverability is cancelled out by familiarity and if I'm going to use a tool seriously then I will become familiar with it. Every other aspect of visual programming is a disadvantage and in many cases a crippling one. The sheer laboriousness of constructing expressions, the lack of sophisticated refactoring and the amount of busywork tidying up nodes so they aren't a jumble of spaghetti. I think these are solvable but not until there's a way to avoid reinventing the wheel for every single system.