> Coding in λ-2D is somewhat like playing Minecraft or Factorio, but it's even better because I can call it research.
I love the honesty in this sentence so much.
λ-2D: An exploration of drawing as programming language
11–20 of 59 posts
Re: λ-2D: An exploration of drawing as programming language
#12Very interesting! Reminds me a bit of ladder logic, a 2D visual programming paradigm based on wiring together relays - but at a higher level of abstraction, since ladder logic is mostly based on simple boolean operations and doesn't really have any notion of defining functions.
The fractal tree and UTM examples are absolutely beautiful and mind-bogglingly simple.
Re: λ-2D: An exploration of drawing as programming language
#13There's a bug where if you have an animated run, but switch programs, the first animated run will keep executing over phantom pathways. You can start another animated run at the same time. The resulting visuals and audio are really interesting.
I also love the option to obfuscate the code in two separate ways. This project rules.
Re: λ-2D: An exploration of drawing as programming language
#14Those animated runs look like they would be super useful for debugging. Offloads a ton of working memory that comes with tracking stack traces in your head when you can just see a visual representation of the stack and watch data flow in real time.
Re: λ-2D: An exploration of drawing as programming language
#15Very nice!
However written languages convey not just what a program does, but also, through the names of things, what it means. Unfortunately there is no validation of (or other computation with) the meaning - so what it seems to mean may or may not have any bearing on what it actually means, either now or previously.
Thus a program is not just how humans talk to machines, but also (one of many ways) humans talk to humans.
Re: λ-2D: An exploration of drawing as programming language
#16Cool, but in practice, for software development you need version control. Has anyone ever seen a workable solution for diffing -- let alone merging -- _any_ graphical language?
Re: λ-2D: An exploration of drawing as programming language
#17What was that language or system where it would read what you wrote down on a piece of paper and then execute the program ?
Re: λ-2D: An exploration of drawing as programming language
#18Who immediately thought: Factorio!
Re: λ-2D: An exploration of drawing as programming language
#19Very nice! However written languages convey not just what a program does , but also, through the names of things, what it means . Unfortunately there is no validation of (or other computation with) the meaning - so what it seems to mean may or may not have any bearing on what it actually means, either now or previously. Thus a program is not just how humans talk to machines, but also (one of many ways) humans talk to…
They do show some diagrams with comments.
It's true that there's no validation of comments. But there's also no validation that the name of a variable is what that variable actually means, or that the name of a function is what that function actually does.
Re: λ-2D: An exploration of drawing as programming language
#20The author [1] was somewhat recently featured on Hacker News [2] for their Fishdraw [3] project, if you're wondering why their name might look familiar. Always a treat to see what they come up with next!