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I really want to like this because you can tell a lot of love has gone into it and visual programming environments is an area that needs a lot of love. But sadl

I really want to like this because you can tell a lot of love has gone into it and visual programming environments is an area that needs a lot of love. But sadly this feels like it’s missed the mark by some margin. Watching the videos and looking at the IDE, I’d say it’s exactly like coding compared to a lot of the other Visual Programming languages I’ve seen and used. If I had to describe this, I’d say it’s a mouse-driven IDE with a YAML-like code. But in its current guise, I can see people itching to use the keyboard for speed once they know what text pieces they want. Whereas some of the other visual programming languages, and their accompanying IDEs, aim to represent program logic in a way that is graphical rather than textual. Which is I think you would normally make the “no code” distinction.

techwiz137 2y ago
I think given the advent of AI, there is less of a need of such a language. All I need is to type out a piece of concise text to AI of choice and I can have a general GUI up and running without having specifically much knowledge of a programming language.
- MahmoudFayed 2y ago
  We think differently. In PWCT2, we believe visual programming is more attractive in the age of AI and large language models (LLMs). This video demonstrates how to use LLMs to generate code that can be directly used in PWCT2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx--dNZvncc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx--dNZvncc
szvsw 2y ago
While I agree with 99% of what you said… > I’d say it’s a mouse-driven IDE with a YAML-like code. But in its current guise, I can see people itching to use the keyboard for speed once they know what text pieces they want. It’s useful to keep in mind that a “mouse-driven” IDE could have some real benefits from an accessibility perspective. I agree that this generally might miss the mark from a variety of goals, especially compared to graph based dataflow programming languages (see my other comment in this thread), and to really maximize accessibility as a goal you would need to actually design it for that from the ground up, but it’s still good to see experiments with other modalities and raise the question. At the end of the day the fraction of programmers who have difficulty typing is low… but that doesn’t mean it should be ignored, especially considering that one day almost all of us on here will have trouble typing, but likely still have the urge to code!
- smaudet 2y ago
  As I said in another comment, I think the part of visual languages their devs are blind to (pun intended) are the input method(s). We can all agree that keyboards are a) large b) necessitate being able to type (need hands) but we don't have that many high-frequency out-of-the-way input methods in computing, generally. I want to see an editor that can a) re-use existing code (libraries, concepts, etc) but that can b) use mouse, keyboard, touchscreen, hand gloves, <insert new input method here>. Drawing boxes on screens and sticking text inside them is just not impressive, and its clunky to boot. Any worth is whatever input method is provided, and TBH I wouldn't expect this to be any easier on e.g. mobile, probably worse, in fact.
  - szvsw 2y ago
    Yeah, the high frequency input capabilities of hands/fingers on keyboard are pretty remarkable and hard to beat, especially in conjunction with navigation tools like vim and especially when you start considering things like stenography applied in a programming context (intellisense/copilot etc can in some ways be be considered a form of that already). I suspect natural language speech is too slow, but i do sometimes wonder if the only other part of our body capable of such high throughput (and the requisite fine motor control) is our mouth/tongue… I’ve always wondered what a programming language optimized for spoken input would look/sound like. Edit: mentioned this in another comment, but I think graph based visual programming languages would actually be pretty well suited to speech entry, especially with shorthands for common operations like “create node” := “kurr” or “connect” := “kuh”.
    - cess11 2y ago
      Typing speed seems like a rather junior concern. In practice most time tends to be spent thinking or cycling through edits and inspecting test results. I think putting your tests in a watch -n 2 on the second screen would be a much better improvement than fiddling with some reinvention of stenography.
      - smaudet 2y ago

techwiz137 2y ago

I think given the advent of AI, there is less of a need of such a language. All I need is to type out a piece of concise text to AI of choice and I can have a general GUI up and running without having specifically much knowledge of a programming language.

MahmoudFayed 2y ago
We think differently. In PWCT2, we believe visual programming is more attractive in the age of AI and large language models (LLMs). This video demonstrates how to use LLMs to generate code that can be directly used in PWCT2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx--dNZvncc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx--dNZvncc

szvsw 2y ago

While I agree with 99% of what you said… > I’d say it’s a mouse-driven IDE with a YAML-like code. But in its current guise, I can see people itching to use the keyboard for speed once they know what text pieces they want. It’s useful to keep in mind that a “mouse-driven” IDE could have some real benefits from an accessibility perspective. I agree that this generally might miss the mark from a variety of goals, especially compared to graph based dataflow programming languages (see my other comment in this thread), and to really maximize accessibility as a goal you would need to actually design it for that from the ground up, but it’s still good to see experiments with other modalities and raise the question. At the end of the day the fraction of programmers who have difficulty typing is low… but that doesn’t mean it should be ignored, especially considering that one day almost all of us on here will have trouble typing, but likely still have the urge to code!

smaudet 2y ago
As I said in another comment, I think the part of visual languages their devs are blind to (pun intended) are the input method(s). We can all agree that keyboards are a) large b) necessitate being able to type (need hands) but we don't have that many high-frequency out-of-the-way input methods in computing, generally. I want to see an editor that can a) re-use existing code (libraries, concepts, etc) but that can b) use mouse, keyboard, touchscreen, hand gloves, <insert new input method here>. Drawing boxes on screens and sticking text inside them is just not impressive, and its clunky to boot. Any worth is whatever input method is provided, and TBH I wouldn't expect this to be any easier on e.g. mobile, probably worse, in fact.
- szvsw 2y ago
  Yeah, the high frequency input capabilities of hands/fingers on keyboard are pretty remarkable and hard to beat, especially in conjunction with navigation tools like vim and especially when you start considering things like stenography applied in a programming context (intellisense/copilot etc can in some ways be be considered a form of that already). I suspect natural language speech is too slow, but i do sometimes wonder if the only other part of our body capable of such high throughput (and the requisite fine motor control) is our mouth/tongue… I’ve always wondered what a programming language optimized for spoken input would look/sound like. Edit: mentioned this in another comment, but I think graph based visual programming languages would actually be pretty well suited to speech entry, especially with shorthands for common operations like “create node” := “kurr” or “connect” := “kuh”.
  - cess11 2y ago
    Typing speed seems like a rather junior concern. In practice most time tends to be spent thinking or cycling through edits and inspecting test results. I think putting your tests in a watch -n 2 on the second screen would be a much better improvement than fiddling with some reinvention of stenography.
    - smaudet 2y ago