Full Metal Jacket: A visual dataflow language (2016) • Hacker News Board

Re: Full Metal Jacket: A visual dataflow language (2016)

#21

Post by camtarn » Mon, Dec 31, 2018, 5:52 AM UTC

caymanjim wrote: post #10

The name of this language is stupid. It evokes violence, either via the bullet reference, or via the film of the same name. I'm not thin-skinned or even prone to political correctness, but I still find it slightly insensitive for no compelling reason. Then I read the author's explanation ( http://www.fmjlang.co.uk/fmj/Name.html ), which makes a comparison between lisp (the programming language) and stereotypes about…

Yeah, I find the name very off-putting. It just doesn't sound professional, and I can't picture myself explaining to a client that I would be providing them with Full Metal Jacket source files.

In particular, in the UK, I suspect the terminology for bullets is almost unknown, so it would be seen exclusively as a film reference.

Call it FMJ and it would be fine, though!

Re: Full Metal Jacket: A visual dataflow language (2016)

#22

Post by merricksb » Mon, Dec 31, 2018, 5:58 AM UTC

Discussed at the time:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12106259

Re: Full Metal Jacket: A visual dataflow language (2016)

#23

Post by scottlocklin » Mon, Dec 31, 2018, 6:11 AM UTC

Hyperborian wrote: post #2

I'm just a few pages in to the tutorial and I already want to try it out myself... but how? Where's the link? Is this not available to the public yet?

I'm pretty sure Labview has a free version and works better.

Re: Full Metal Jacket: A visual dataflow language (2016)

#24

Post by zepto » Mon, Dec 31, 2018, 6:34 AM UTC

caymanjim wrote: post #10

The name of this language is stupid. It evokes violence, either via the bullet reference, or via the film of the same name. I'm not thin-skinned or even prone to political correctness, but I still find it slightly insensitive for no compelling reason. Then I read the author's explanation ( http://www.fmjlang.co.uk/fmj/Name.html ), which makes a comparison between lisp (the programming language) and stereotypes about…

It’s not for Dum-Dums.

Re: Full Metal Jacket: A visual dataflow language (2016)

#25

Post by deadmanku » Mon, Dec 31, 2018, 6:47 AM UTC

when you look at code it's hard to recognize. if there is a way to success of a visual programming language that is the code should appeal more recognizable than text.

Re: Full Metal Jacket: A visual dataflow language (2016)

#26

Post by RantyDave » Mon, Dec 31, 2018, 6:58 AM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #6

I have seen visual dataflow languages and even worked on some of them. They usually work better in specific domains like stream processing, control systems, signal processing and such. Even then, once a "program" gets complex it can get tangled fast. A node with 3000 edges starts to look messy. There are some things you can do to fix it but then you just kind of wish to use a simple script. As for general computing,…

Visual effects lives breathes and eats visual languages. It's not necessarily a good thing - people get (very) competent with them then start writing C++ using the same style namely, copy-n-paste a go go.

Refactoring fun for all the family.

Re: Full Metal Jacket: A visual dataflow language (2016)

#27

Post by hliyan » Mon, Dec 31, 2018, 7:22 AM UTC

_wmd wrote: post #5

hliyan wrote: post #3

"Text-based languages are so 20th century" This is arguably NOT true. Visual languages have consistently failed to match, let alone out-do textual languages for decades, and with good reason.

Would you consider Microsoft Excel a visual language?

Excel is cartesian, which is hardly 'graphical'. There are virtually no superfluous graphical detail (e.g. placement of shapes, arrows, thickness etc.) -- the only part of the flexgrid that has semantic meaning is the row and column reference.

Re: Full Metal Jacket: A visual dataflow language (2016)

#28

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Dec 31, 2018, 8:22 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Full Metal Jacket: A visual dataflow language (2016)

#29

Post by asn0 » Mon, Dec 31, 2018, 8:58 AM UTC

Eli_P wrote: post #12

Visual representation for code has its own niches for certain. The most newfangled thingy I've encountered is Ballerina[1], it's kind of text diagram convertible code, cloud-oriented. Looks cool; there are some codes on github[2]. But anyways, I think it may be worthy as a domain-specific environment only. Because as a general-purpose language, visual languages are claimed to have improved perceptible difficulty , bu…

I'm curious how Ballerina avoids (or does it?) this problem mentioned in another comment:

>once a "program" gets complex it can get tangled fast. A node with 3000 edges starts to look messy.

Re: Full Metal Jacket: A visual dataflow language (2016)

#30

Post by theshadowknows » Mon, Dec 31, 2018, 10:17 AM UTC

Funny how so much of the underlying code used to make this “keyboardless” language was written on a keyboard. I’ll be more impressed when there’s a “FMJ” implementation written purely in “FMJ.”