3 ms·

While I haven't used it, Processing (http://processing.org/ http://processing.org/) sounds like it may be worth a look.

jdavid 18y ago
processing is a framework for creating graphics and visualization. i am sure this is a good way to write the graphical language container, but i was looking more for what graphical metaphors should exist if we wanted to solve problems using a graphical layout.
- silentbicycle 18y ago
  All right, for starters: Most algorithms can be decomposed into graph problems. (Trees are a subset of graphs.) Set operations, as you noted, can usually be visualized with venn diagrams. Multiple inheritance may make more sense as a tree growing together. A garbage collector's arena could show its data fading away when it hasn't been accessed for a while. I like the idea of a hash of a variable affecting its color, making structurally equal items easier to spot. Have you ever seen lavaps (http://www.isi.edu/~johnh/SOFTWARE/LAVAPS/index.html http://www.isi.edu/~johnh/SOFTWARE/LAVAPS/index.html), by the way? To turn the question on its head, I wonder what concepts remain undiscovered because people tend to brainstorm visually (on whiteboards, etc.), but some ideas are intrinsically hard to depict visually. (Speaking as somebody who is more textually-minded, but has become good at spatial thinking because of 3D programming.) Brainstorming in terms of sound (harmonic scales or rhythms) could bring out different solutions, for example. I find anthropomorphizing components of a problem (like the actor model) helpful, too.
  - jdavid 18y ago
    i like the idea of any vr, or augmented reality components being brought into the programing language environment. the way i see it, text based languages lend them selves well to linear thinking and linear processing. i think we are moving to a place where we need to move passed linear thinking and move more towards networked processes. it seems to me that on large sites, you might want to do A/B testing on a number of features to see which ones work better, this means staged deployment, testing and programing are done in a really complex way. we should accept this as part of the pattern and design environments and tools to make this easier to debug, without a whole bunch of "if" statements cluttering the code to determine the configuration state. i also see writing functions now as part of the design process, and i always like some of the metaphors in UML, but UML also always lacked into translating directly into code.
mahmud 18y ago
It's the output of Processing that's visual. In graphical PLs, it's the input that's graphically manipulated; take a look at Scratch, you drag a "for loop" from a toolbox and drop it into a visual "control flow", then watch the FOR snap into place and presto. http://scratch.mit.edu/ http://scratch.mit.edu/

processing is a framework for creating graphics and visualization. i am sure this is a good way to write the graphical language container, but i was looking more for what graphical metaphors should exist if we wanted to solve problems using a graphical layout.

silentbicycle 18y ago
All right, for starters: Most algorithms can be decomposed into graph problems. (Trees are a subset of graphs.) Set operations, as you noted, can usually be visualized with venn diagrams. Multiple inheritance may make more sense as a tree growing together. A garbage collector's arena could show its data fading away when it hasn't been accessed for a while. I like the idea of a hash of a variable affecting its color, making structurally equal items easier to spot. Have you ever seen lavaps (http://www.isi.edu/~johnh/SOFTWARE/LAVAPS/index.html http://www.isi.edu/~johnh/SOFTWARE/LAVAPS/index.html), by the way? To turn the question on its head, I wonder what concepts remain undiscovered because people tend to brainstorm visually (on whiteboards, etc.), but some ideas are intrinsically hard to depict visually. (Speaking as somebody who is more textually-minded, but has become good at spatial thinking because of 3D programming.) Brainstorming in terms of sound (harmonic scales or rhythms) could bring out different solutions, for example. I find anthropomorphizing components of a problem (like the actor model) helpful, too.
- jdavid 18y ago
  i like the idea of any vr, or augmented reality components being brought into the programing language environment. the way i see it, text based languages lend them selves well to linear thinking and linear processing. i think we are moving to a place where we need to move passed linear thinking and move more towards networked processes. it seems to me that on large sites, you might want to do A/B testing on a number of features to see which ones work better, this means staged deployment, testing and programing are done in a really complex way. we should accept this as part of the pattern and design environments and tools to make this easier to debug, without a whole bunch of "if" statements cluttering the code to determine the configuration state. i also see writing functions now as part of the design process, and i always like some of the metaphors in UML, but UML also always lacked into translating directly into code.

mahmud 18y ago

It's the output of Processing that's visual. In graphical PLs, it's the input that's graphically manipulated; take a look at Scratch, you drag a "for loop" from a toolbox and drop it into a visual "control flow", then watch the FOR snap into place and presto. http://scratch.mit.edu/ http://scratch.mit.edu/