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Ask HN: Why does visual programming suck?

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Re: Ask HN: Why does visual programming suck?

#121

Post by dgudkov »

I believe general purpose visual programming hasn't become widely popular because currently it's not really needed for general programming. General programming used to be pretty low-level (e.g. i++) and linear (because it's single-threaded in vast majority of cases). Things slowly change though. Now popular functional programming tends to be more high-level and the shift to multi-core CPUs even on mobile devices encourages more and more developers write multi-threaded code.

At the same time there are very successful niche cases for visual programming with Excel as the most prominent. Yes, there are no data flows in Excel (although it can display dependencies with arrows), but you typically can easily identify visual blocks (chains) of calculations on a sheet. I've designed a visual programming tool for data transformation (http://easymorph.com) which can be viewed as a visual programming language[1] because typically the task of data transformation is high-level and non-linear, and visual programming works very well in this case.

[1] http://bi-review.blogspot.ca/2015/06/easymorph-as-visual-fun...

Re: Ask HN: Why does visual programming suck?

#122

Post by nzonbi »

david927 wrote: post #16

I disagree with several here: The problem is that we still program in text, and that's deeply sub-optimal.* Once we move to programming in data, visual programming becomes both natural and intuitive, much like data visualization. In other words, VP itself is a red herring. The leap that needs to first to be made is that from text to data. * https://www.emaze.com/@AWOCZQLL/Text-is-for-Novels

Interesting presentation. One thing that we agree, is that the current state of programming is not final. There have to be better ways for humans to program. I wonder how much people thinks like that. A poll would be interesting.

In reality, programming has been stuck in the text approach for many years. Perhaps some people take that as evidence that there is no more progress to be made. Another factor that may be undermining research in programming, is the AI boom. Perhaps some think that AI will displace programmers in a not too distant time.

I agree with you that programs are data. And would benefit from a more specialized representation. I have been researching the aspect of program logic. For example, one thing that I think is terrible in programming, is deep nesting levels. That makes it complex to follow programs. I have been exploring ways to improve that. In my opinion graphical visualizations can provide ways to improve that.

Re: Ask HN: Why does visual programming suck?

#123

Post by [deleted] »

VladimirGolovin wrote: post #50

Filter Forge founder here, now working on a turing-complete functional visual programming language inspired mostly by Haskell: https://imgur.com/a/HkSgJ Here's what I currently think on visual programming languages: 1. I see no place for imperative and non-pure functional languages in visual programming. 2. Pure functional languages can absolutely be implemented with visual syntax. This is just another form of repres…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Why does visual programming suck?

#124

Post by c3534l »

Changu wrote: post #52

I think the reason is that text is already a highly optimized visual way to represent information. It started with cave paintings and evolved to what it is now. "Please go to the supermarket and get two bottles of beer. If you see Joe, tell him we are having a party in my house at 6 tomorrow." It took me a few seconds to write that. Imagine I had to paint it.

> It started with cave paintings and evolved to what it is now.

Actually, our writing system evolved from accounting tokens. Eventually we learned we could save on little figurines by pressing the one into clay a bunch. And at any rate, writing encodes speech and is severely limited to the limitations spoken speech has. Rather than be well-optimized, writing is severely limited by tradition, by the physical limitation of auditory communication, and by the physical limitations of encoding it into paper.

Re: Ask HN: Why does visual programming suck?

#125

Post by joshmarinacci »

kpil wrote: post #117
david927 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your example is strange. Changing the text and changing the data would require the same amount of time. And a graph would, in fact, instantly put that change into context. Right, code is data. Not now, though. Currently, code is text -- it's not data. That's the problem. And, yes, currently, drawing it instead of typing out the text is a horrible idea. We agree. But remember, currently, we're failing. Software is a d…

I think you are chasing something that does not exist. While i submit to the idea that programs are "data", and could be represented not just like text, the expressiveness when using a visual representation is small, but the exactness is as high as normal languages. I've seen large visual-programming programs, and they explode into complexity, and I think there is a reason for that, the expressiveness of a symbolic l…

Visual programming does not have to mean 100% not text.

https://joshondesign.com/2014/08/22/typopl

Re: Ask HN: Why does visual programming suck?

#126

Post by crazygringo »

hasenj wrote: post #59
Changu wrote: post #52

I think the reason is that text is already a highly optimized visual way to represent information. It started with cave paintings and evolved to what it is now. "Please go to the supermarket and get two bottles of beer. If you see Joe, tell him we are having a party in my house at 6 tomorrow." It took me a few seconds to write that. Imagine I had to paint it.

Exactly! I'm actually bewildered why some people think visual programming is a good idea at all.

I suspect it has to do entirely with affordances.

Programming in text, you have to learn, in advance, what the commands are that you're allowed to type, and remember them. That's a heavy up-front investment.

Visual programming generally makes it much clearer exactly what your range of options are -- the goal is for the learning curve to be far easier.

Re: Ask HN: Why does visual programming suck?

#128

Post by nzonbi »

mvindahl wrote: post #113

I think visual programming is one of those ideas that intuitively seems like a good idea but never is. Thus, it never really dies, it just gets picked up as a kind of rite-of-passage by new generations of developers. Managers also tend to like the concept as it would allow them to bypass the pesky code monkeys and just feed their drawings to the computer. For my master's thesis, some 15 years ago, I programmed a syst…

My horse carriage is very useful. The horse just feeds itself, if you leave him in a grass field. It rarely gets sick and last many years. The wheels are easily replaced from the store.

The other day I saw a crazy guy with a mechanical contraption that, according to the guy, moved by burning wood! The guy was demoing it at the town. He filled it with wood, and then had to start the fire. The crazy machine got so hot that nobody could get near it. The thing barely moved a few meters and then Kabooooom!! it exploded in a black cloud. What sane person may ever believe that one of these contraptions could be useful?

Am I right? Are you right? we don't know. Research is the only way to know.

Re: Ask HN: Why does visual programming suck?

#129

Post by djedr »

mvindahl wrote: post #113

I think visual programming is one of those ideas that intuitively seems like a good idea but never is. Thus, it never really dies, it just gets picked up as a kind of rite-of-passage by new generations of developers. Managers also tend to like the concept as it would allow them to bypass the pesky code monkeys and just feed their drawings to the computer. For my master's thesis, some 15 years ago, I programmed a syst…

Some good points. But I think your view has become too negative, perhaps due to your experiences. Or at least I see more hope for visual programming. :)

> I think visual programming is one of those ideas that intuitively seems like a good idea but never is. Thus, it never really dies, it just gets picked up as a kind of rite-of-passage by new generations of developers.

Perhaps the intutition is right, but the problem is too general and thus very hard to solve. And I think that, looking at the general trend, it does seem to evolve towards something better with every new generation.

Not the first and not the last idea like that.

We're just not there yet.

> For my master's thesis, some 15 years ago, I programmed a system for visually composing and executing Java programs.

Similar experience here [0]. :) But for me it was a year ago, so I guess I represent a newer generation.

> Since then I've twice found myself on projects where we had to work with visual programming tools

I worked with some too, mostly Unreal Engine 4. Fortunately all for education, not for work. ;)

And your experience is probably a good picture of the state of the art in this area, if it comes to complex and more general-purpose application development.

> The main reason that it will never catch on, IMHO

I'm still a believer. But probably not in my generation either. ;)

> the text editor is far better for managing complexity. It's easy to search for stuff, and it's easy to move or copy it.

True. Compared to a visual editor of today.

For this and other reasons, text coding can't and will not be replaced with visual coding. Visual programming, I think, should be thought of as an extension of text programming.

So I think that visual editors will only start becoming successful and more wide-spread among regular developers when they stop being visual-only. Or, in other words, when they stop eschewing all the good parts of text-based environments. Visual programming should complement text-based programming. Not replace it.

> Visual programming tools -- or at least those that I have met -- instead force you to deal with stuff that doesn't matter (such as aligning boxes and arrows), and views very quickly become cluttered when you start connecting things.

It's almost like coding in text without the editor helping you with indentation and structuring of text. You have to arrange boxes and connections yourself.

This is one thing that illustrates that some visual languages are really a few steps back in evolution compared to text languages.

But there are visual environments (e.g. Scratch and the like), which do help you with structure.

Anyway, I'm tired and it's very late, so I'll end here. Cheers!

[0] (copy-pasted from my previous comment):

(a screenshot from my project) http://djedr.github.io/gfx/masters-thesis/ide-prototype.png

(link to my thesis) http://djedr.github.io/masters_thesis.pdf

Re: Ask HN: Why does visual programming suck?

#130

Post by amatheus »

Visual programming is used in Maya or Houdini for example (I think Houdini is more oriented towards it). While these are 3D software, I don't think there's anything 3D specific about how it works. I've seen a video of a guy showing how to create assets for game and building something that works pretty much as a function out of interconnected nodes (I can't remember the exact webinar I watched but found this other https://vimeo.com/202120820). Now they don't call it programming but as I see it, that's programming and the basic idea could be made to work in other contexts.
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