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I am 100% sure, that at least for me, I can imagine and design a graphics language, superior to text representation of programs. And I expect that for most peop
by nzonbi 14y ago
I am 100% sure, that at least for me, I can imagine and design a graphics language, superior to text representation of programs. And I expect that for most people, once they surpass the learning curve, will also be better. And even more sure about it working for people new to programming.
We can represent programs using texts. text is a good way to represent sequences of information. So it fit programs well, to some extent.
But text is limited. Programs contains many kinds of information, that don't fit well with a textual representation. Hierarchical data, scope, branching flow, loops, etc. After you realize this, you can also replace text commands, with symbolic representations that are easier to parse visually, and that can convey their function better than just text.
You need to maintain an appropriate level of information density. This one of the thing that has made text representation of programs successfully.
The other key thing is the UI. We are highly productive in manipulating text with editors. A successful graphical language has to beat that. It has to make possible to manipulate the information more efficiently: faster, and with less muscular effort. Allow me to call this the field of "unconventional UIs".
When I was a kid, I only had access to computer for a brief time. But I had plenty of access to console games. I used to love videogames. I spent huge deals of time detailed studying them, drawing concepts, etc. Examining why I found most of them to be bad, some average, and a few gems. A key thing was the UI. The mechanisms to manipulate the game environment.
Well, videogames are a rich field of unconventional UIs. And it is a field that I know very well. My experience with all these game UIs, makes me pretty sure. A better, more efficient UI can be designed, to manipulate programs information, on a graphical environment, than existing UI from text editors.
that's it in short.