One more into that list.
Flow based with input as impulses.
Folk wisdom on visual programming
91–100 of 168 posts
Re: Folk wisdom on visual programming
#92One thing missing here and in most of the visual programming discussions since it sits in a somewhat adjacent SCADA industry is Ladder Logic[1]. It was pretty illuminating how many parallels ladder has with the visual and scripting solutions I'd worked with in GameDev. Hot-reload under running processes, visual debugging very reminiscent of node based visual editors. I ended up automating our greenhouse with a P100[2…
Indeed, it's still very much alive in European industrial automation scene.
The ladder logic lends itself well for majority of industrial automation problems (e.g. turn on the motor until the part triggers a sensor, then activate a pneumatic cylinder to push it sideways). The control flow can be easily followed for debugging.
Since it's also easily interfaced with structured text modules, one can write procedural code for problems that are more easily expressed in procedural code (in my experience: statemachines, network communication, loops), but still use ladder logic that's more understandable by other people who may be maintaining the machine down the roead.
Re: Folk wisdom on visual programming
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Personally I think programming language is about a compromise between performance and convenience. That's one dimension, but what about popularity, maintainability, being able to hire, productivity, being able to tackle precise problems, etc.
I think concern about “ability to hire” is a bit overblown: I’ve worked at a couple places now that have taken the “hire people that know what they’re doing and they’ll figure out the language” approach, and it’s generally successful for most business applications: this is true even when the team is using unusual languages like Clojure.
The problem is really about tooling, you also need people who can fix bugs/port to new arch in the compiler and related tools. For a very popular language you can always find the right people for this task or even offload this task like they do with oracle.
Re: Folk wisdom on visual programming
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What other topics do y'all think HN provides unique insight on? Career managment I think (not sure if it's the good term for it). I see lots of people in their 40's or more that quit some FANG job for another job that earns less but is more aligned with how they want to live their life. I see lots of people advocating to quit jobs as soon as you see red flags. I think both of these are good wisdom. On the other han…
Personally I think programming language is about a compromise between performance and convenience. For instance, I program in Python if speed is irrelevant. Rust if it is very relevant. C# if I want a large project where performance is somewhat important. I think there are a wide range of languages for each "category" where I put Python, C# and Rust above, but those 3 are my current favorites. Certain languages are v…
That’s true for conventional languages, you can trade off some performance for a bit of productivity. However, if you want significantly more productivity, we hit walls quickly in PL design where trading off performance is no longer effective. So ya, Kotlin is slightly better and slower than C, but both languages are fundamentally still in the same ballpark that we don’t know how to get out of yet.
Re: Folk wisdom on visual programming
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally I think programming language is about a compromise between performance and convenience. For instance, I program in Python if speed is irrelevant. Rust if it is very relevant. C# if I want a large project where performance is somewhat important. I think there are a wide range of languages for each "category" where I put Python, C# and Rust above, but those 3 are my current favorites. Certain languages are v…
> Personally I think programming language is about a compromise between performance and convenience. That's one dimension, but what about popularity, maintainability, being able to hire, productivity, being able to tackle precise problems, etc.
Those are layman’s concerns. Programmers love to learn new things and are typically good at it. If a given tech has merit and some unique advantages.
Edit: I didn’t read the comment right. Productivity and being able to solve precise problems are essentially why you’re choosing a technology in the first place?
Re: Folk wisdom on visual programming
#96I think what the author did here hits hard on why hacker news is such a great resource. To quote: > Most fields have a problem with ‘ghost knowledge’, hard-won practical understanding that is mostly passed on verbally between practitioners and not written down anywhere public. At least in programming some chunk of it makes it into forum posts. I'd be incredibly interested in seeing a series of posts like this, where…
The technical term for “ghost knowledge” is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_knowledge
Re: Folk wisdom on visual programming
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I used LabVIEW extensively for a few months I’m not sure that a few months is enough to understand the true pros and cons of a language. I’m using Elixir in my day job now and have used F# for side projects, and it’s not clear to me any one is faster to program in, especially for GUIs. LabVIEW actually shines, contrary to popular but inexperienced opinion, for large projects. I have used LabVIEW rather extensively,…
Unless you game for a living, you usually work a lot more than you game.
That's probably true once once hits the workforce, but I'm pretty sure I gamed 40+ hours/week back in school. That starcraft ladder doesn't climb itself...
Re: Folk wisdom on visual programming
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unless you game for a living, you usually work a lot more than you game.
That’s true to a degree, but I think the discrepancy is still there. Experts in LabVIEW build up key commands to do things for them, and there’s even an ability to custom implement these using LabVIEW itself. Also, for some reason other fields seem to love these visual tools like TouchDesigner and Grasshopper. Programmers can be quite myopic when it comes to their programming preferences and perspectives. For tools t…
> Also, for some reason other fields seem to love these visual tools like TouchDesigner and Grasshopper.
It's very simple - if you work with artists and you make them a presentation of your software, and at any moment there is some amount of code displayed on the screen, some of them will get up and leave the presentation.
I worked on my software with someone who would literally refuse to use the keyboard - everything had to be done by mouse, and I know a fair amount of like-minded people in th e same field.
Re: Folk wisdom on visual programming
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
This presentation might enlighten why visual programming is in demand for gamedev. It's about a similar system developed in-house for The Division series: https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1023382/AI-Behavior-Editing-an... In short: There are many game designers and artists who prefer visual scripting tools over traditional code.
But I also see some hate this style. This guy is an artist/programmer. https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/blueprints-are-a-toy-which... BTW I do agree visual programming makes sense in certain area, but to use it for a general scripting language? Hell no...
The ratio of people I know in gamedev who love vs hate visual programming is on the order of 10:1
Re: Folk wisdom on visual programming
#100Years ago I bounced around from one visual tool to another, never mastering any of them but getting deep enough to see the flaws. Hypercard, Authorware, Director, Flash. They were all very approachable, but they were all incredibly flawed in the end. You'd spend most of your time jumping from one limitation to the next, trying to hack your way out of the spaghetti jungle. I think the better approach is to use convent…
I loved MacroMind (later Macromedia) (later Adobe) Director.
Delivered dozens of educational CD's, corporate CD's and many of my own 'experiments'.
One of those was a map for EverQuest to help find dead bodies (it was a big thing at the time), and help swimmers who fell off a ship to get back to land alive. Another was a project to scan every user-authored book in Ultima Online (using basic OCR)
Director was extensible in that you could not only import 3rd party libraries, but write your own modules in Pascal. Much more powerful and extensible than Flash IMHO.
Flash won that battle after the buy-out, and Adobe extinguished Director. Still miss it to create proof-of-concept, simple or amazing cross-platform apps.