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Ask HN: Why does visual programming suck?
201–210 of 325 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why does visual programming suck?
#202Filter 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…
Wow, I really like it! Although, I think your ui is too verbose. Main indicator, is, well, the size of "blocks of data", where text takes 4 times less space than visual representation. But there is also an information overload: text representation of `map` call has no indication of what kind of arguments it expects, it is implied by order of args and basically is just defined by language. I guess, visual analog of th…
Agreed on verbosity. That's one of the reasons why I think that visual languages don't work well on lower levels of abstraction.
(BTW, texts in the Map call are argument names, and colors indicate their type.)
Re: Ask HN: Why does visual programming suck?
#203Filter 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…
Filter Forge is great. I was thinking on doing something similar and will definitely take inspiration on FF. What will be the use of your next turing complete VPL ?
It's intended for a Filter Forge sequel. The main pillars will be Turing-completeness and GPU support (implemented via a separate node-based DSL).
Re: Ask HN: Why does visual programming suck?
#204Imagine a world where people only bought bespoke suits. You go to a tailor and are measured and pick out your fabric and wait a few weeks. Then you pick up your suit. It's perfect. You pay $5000 and take it home. Most of us don't do that. Most of us make due with off the rack suits with some tailoring for 1/10th the price. With programming we have an expectation of bespoke design, so anything less, even if it's much…
Agreed. There are a lot of good points in this thread about why visual programming falls short for general purpose computing. However, I would argue that it already has a firm foothold in select domains such as presentations (powerpoint).
Re: Ask HN: Why does visual programming suck?
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
then why does everyone sketch a picture when trying to convey an idea? text is obviously useful but so is visual information. the complete dismissal of visual programming by text-based programmers is often infuriating. visual programming can provide an immediate indication of structure and dataflow, something that text-based languages struggle with. in my mind, the best case scenario is some sort of hybrid, where vis…
> then why does everyone sketch a picture when trying to convey an idea? Does everyone do that? I think I very rarely do. When I need to convey an idea on a whiteboard, it's still almost completely text, with a few extra symbols like directional arrows that I think are still effectively just symbolic written language. Literally the only time I can remember sketching a picture to convey an idea is while playing Pictio…
I quite often use UI mockups to show an example of the end result (or ask others to do the same). It doesn't even matter if it's correct, but it's a useful way to start a discussion. I've tried to do this in words but often different people have different interpretations and it simply doesn't work without a picture.
I've also found it very useful when people are asking for things that don't entirely make sense, such as a chart/report that would require 3+ dimensions. By asking them to draw an example, they realize the challenge and we can make progress.
Re: Ask HN: Why does visual programming suck?
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Is your company's accounting system in Word or Oracle? Accounting uses numbers, which in this context is text. If you replace a spreadsheet with a graph, your accountants will murder you.
which in this context is text Ha! Nice try. You program in a text file. You don't get to somehow call that a spreadsheet just to make your argument sound better. My whole point is that we need to turn that free text into a spreadsheet (from which graphs can be produced) and "your accountants will thank you".
Why is it that only very simple programs can we written effectively with spreadsheets and that setups where complex arrangements of linked spreadsheets and databases are described as horrible to work with by the people that have to work with them.
Is it possible that nearly every professional is right and you are wrong and text is an effective means to represent computation.
Re: Ask HN: Why does visual programming suck?
#207"Text is the most socially useful communication technology. It works well in 1:1, 1:N, and M:N modes. It can be indexed and searched efficiently, even by hand. It can be translated. It can be produced and consumed at variable speeds. It is asynchronous. It can be compared, diffed, clustered, corrected, summarized and filtered algorithmically. It permits multiparty editing. It permits branching conversations, lurking,…
I agree with this statement, wholeheartedly. I do, however, think programming languages could benefit from more visual augmentation . A program, over time, takes on more complexity than a programmer can hold in his mind, and eventually, the program's design will elude him. A disconnect appears between the text he types in the moment and the original design of the program. The sum total of the program's code no longer…
This is, I think, the idea behind IDEs
Re: Ask HN: Why does visual programming suck?
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
> then why does everyone sketch a picture when trying to convey an idea? Does everyone do that? I think I very rarely do. When I need to convey an idea on a whiteboard, it's still almost completely text, with a few extra symbols like directional arrows that I think are still effectively just symbolic written language. Literally the only time I can remember sketching a picture to convey an idea is while playing Pictio…
I quite often use UI mockups to show an example of the end result (or ask others to do the same). It doesn't even matter if it's correct, but it's a useful way to start a discussion. I've tried to do this in words but often different people have different interpretations and it simply doesn't work without a picture. I've also found it very useful when people are asking for things that don't entirely make sense, such…
"Picture is worth thousand words", but if you just need ten words, maybe it's not worth the effort to make a picture?
It depends on context. If you want to show how and UI looks, then it's probably faster and better to just draw it, but if you want to show how function transforms a string, then it's unnecessary to draw bunch of stuff.
Re: Ask HN: Why does visual programming suck?
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sometimes they do. In my view the most prominent example is documentation for installing computer hardware and software on Windows computers. The instructions will be a series of pictures, with circles and arrows, and a paragraph on the back of each one (sic). This goes on for page after page. And when the OS is updated and the dialogs all change a bit, the documentation becomes confusing or even obsolete. In contras…
I also hate that, but I always felt it was more a failure of the documentation writer than the GUI. "Click File -> Settings -> Whatever, open the Something tab, and click the "Do It" button under the Stuff subheading" can easily replace half a dozen unnecessary images.
GUI is documentation. If you have to document how to use your GUI you are doing it wrong.
Re: Ask HN: Why does visual programming suck?
#210Unreal has a VPL and it is a pain to use. A simple piece of code takes up so much desktop real estate that you either have to slowly move around to see it all or have to add more monitors to your setup to see it all. You think spaghetti code is bad imagine actually having a visual representation of it you have to work with. Organization doesn't exist you can go left, up, right, or down. If you ever try to enforce cod…
For the curious, here is an example of Unreal's Blueprint code:
https://forums.unrealengine.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=...