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We need visual programming. No, not like that

blog.sbensu.com

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Re: We need visual programming. No, not like that

#81

Post by cardanome »

bittwiddle wrote: post #27

I built a little game around the idea of a visual representation of s-expressions. It is meant to make it easier for newcomers to learn to program. The visualization not only allows you to edit programs more easily, but also to observe it as it runs. Heavily inspired by MIT's Lisp-based SICP course. The game uses Rust+SDL, and is playable in the browser thanks to WASM. https://www.bittwiddlegames.com/lambda-spellcraf…

Love the idea.

Not sure if the Demo represents the final state but please add an option to adjust the text speed, importantly, including an option to show the text immediately. Yes, you can double click but that is unergonomic and adds an delay. As a fast reader, I skipped over most of the explanations because I just couldn't tolerate it. Also add the option to progress the dialogue via key press instead of mouse. And the text needs a margin left and right.

This stuff might sound minor but can make a huge difference in player retention. Definitely looking forward to trying your game out once it has been polished a bit more.

Re: We need visual programming. No, not like that

#82

Post by Capricorn2481 »

felixgallo wrote: post #79
sbensu wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[post author] I am familiar with those and have used a couple. There are similar examples in music, where visual programming dominates. The implied audience of this post (not clear) is people writing business applications, web dev, etc. The examples are picked to reflect what could be useful to those developers. In other words, all the examples you mentioned are great but they are not how a "software engineer in a so…

game developers are definitely software engineers in software companies.

Of course, but you know what they're saying.

Re: We need visual programming. No, not like that

#84

Post by beefnugs »

lukev wrote: post #7
jampekka wrote: post #2

The fundamental problem in visual programming is that it limits you to geometry (practically to 2D euclidian space). Most non-trivial programming problems are spaghetti by nature in such spaces.

I got the Apple Vision Pro with the hope to tinker with such things. Is one more dimension enough to "unlock" visual programming? I don't know, and unfortunately not many seem interested in exploring it.

I personally wont ever be interested in VR until it has "generic computing" as a major feature.

like automatically creating a 3d world showing pipes as your internet connections, some kind of switches and buttons and things as every single thing you can do with your computer including complicated ass command line and GUI windows.

And all the tools necessary to reduce or increase the complexity of it as I see fit as a user

Re: We need visual programming. No, not like that

#86

Post by munificent »

felixgallo wrote: post #79
sbensu wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[post author] I am familiar with those and have used a couple. There are similar examples in music, where visual programming dominates. The implied audience of this post (not clear) is people writing business applications, web dev, etc. The examples are picked to reflect what could be useful to those developers. In other words, all the examples you mentioned are great but they are not how a "software engineer in a so…

game developers are definitely software engineers in software companies.

My experience is that the software engineers at game companies generally hate the visual programming tools. They want to work with code. It's the game designers who (sometimes) like using visual tools.

Re: We need visual programming. No, not like that

#88

Post by shermantanktop »

Most of these solutions are based on a cognitive trap, which I don’t know a name for, so I’ll call it the “maker vs. taker” fallacy.

Person A (the maker) has a problem, and works to solve it by creating a tool. The tool is effective and person A applies it to many similar problems to good effect.

Person B (“taker”) has just such a problem and applies the tool. Unfortunately it doesn’t help nearly as much as person A thought it would. A long series of similar people with similar problems come along and fail.

What the “maker” doesn’t realize is that the tool is ineffective unless you also went through the learning process required to build such a tool, which forces you to understand the problem domain far more deeply than a “taker” ever will.

The tool actually hampers the learning process that the maker benefited from, by asking the taker to learn tool semantics instead of spending time on the actual problem.

Re: We need visual programming. No, not like that

#89

Post by kmoser »

Harmohit wrote: post #59

I am surprised I have not seen LabView mentioned in this thread. It is arguably one of the most popular visual programming languages after Excel and I absolutely hate it. It has all the downsides of visual programming that the author mentions. The visual aspect of it makes it so hard to understand the flow of control. There is no clear left to right or top to bottom way of chronologically reading a program.

This is exactly why a visual representation of code can be useful for analyzing certain things, but will rarely be the best (or even preferred) way to write code.

I think a happy medium would be an environment where you could easily switch between "code" and "visual" view, and maybe even make changes within each, but I suspect developers will stick with "code" view most of the time.

Also, from the article: > Developers say they want "visual programming"

I certainly don't. What I do want is an IDE which has a better view into my entire project, including all the files, images, DB, etc., so it can make much better informed suggestions. Kind of like JetBrains on steroids, but with better built-in error checking and autocomplete suggestions. I want the ability to move a chunk of code somewhere else, and have the IDE warn me (or even fix the problem) when the code I move now references out-of-scope variables. In short, I want the IDE to handle most of the grunt work, so I can concentrate on the bigger picture.

Re: We need visual programming. No, not like that

#90

Post by jayd16 »

munificent wrote: post #86
felixgallo wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

game developers are definitely software engineers in software companies.

My experience is that the software engineers at game companies generally hate the visual programming tools. They want to work with code. It's the game designers who (sometimes) like using visual tools.

Some are bad but Blueprints is great. Main issue is they don't always play nice with text based coding tools.
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