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Visual Programming Languages – Snapshots

blog.interfacevision.com

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Re: Visual Programming Languages – Snapshots

#31

Post by lutusp »

dang wrote: post #30

This is a dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7274674 . Submitters: please check whether an article has been posted before. In this case, running the title through HN Search returns the above immediately. Once a story has had significant attention on HN, we generally don't allow reposts for about a year.

Just a suggestion -- have the submission routine search for prior appearances of the offering, especially effective when the URLs are identical. Then diplomatically suggest that the submission might make the submitter look like a craven copycat. :)

Re: Visual Programming Languages – Snapshots

#33

Post by ericHosick »

jerf wrote: post #24

I'm glad this is still being updated. When people announce loudly that visual programming is the future, I'm often one being skeptical, and one of the points I try to make is that it's not a new idea. Not only has it been tried, it's been comprehensively tried, in multitudes of domains and variations. If you think this is the solution, you really ought to spend time studying what has already been tried. This make tha…

> I'm glad this is still being updated.

We are too. There are a lot of languages out there and as we find them we add them (we have someone who is searching and adding them).

> If nothing else, this screenshot display ought to put to rest the idea that visual programming makes programming "intuitive" or "easy to understand".... most of these screenshots are just as opaque at first glance as any block of code is.

I'm not sure if I totally agree with your conclusion of what the VPL - Snapshot page is bringing to the table. I think this page shows that there are many different ways people form mental models. Not only in the domain of textual languages but even within the domain of Visual languages.

The intuitive or easy part comes from people being able to program a computer using the mental models they are most comfortable with.

As for VPLs being tried comprehensively, I think this is true in the case of domain specific VPLs and I think they are becoming more and more main stream. For general purpose, domain agnostic VPLs, I don't think we've even touched the surface.

Re: Visual Programming Languages – Snapshots

#34

Post by dang »

lutusp wrote: post #31
dang wrote: post #30

This is a dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7274674 . Submitters: please check whether an article has been posted before. In this case, running the title through HN Search returns the above immediately. Once a story has had significant attention on HN, we generally don't allow reposts for about a year.

Just a suggestion -- have the submission routine search for prior appearances of the offering, especially effective when the URLs are identical. Then diplomatically suggest that the submission might make the submitter look like a craven copycat. :)

HN's dupe detection has always been an honor system. We leave it so porous because we want to give the best stories multiple cracks at the bat. Otherwise randomness and churn, especially during peak hours, would bury far too many. Of course, this also makes the dupe detector easy to game, so we ask people not to game it. A small number of reposts is ok.

Several users have complained that randomness and churn are still causing many good stories to disappear without a trace. After looking at the data, we agree, and we're working on some experimental solutions for it.

If there's one driving idea behind HN, it's optimizing for curiosity, which cares about quality over quantity, so losing any of the best stories is a big (bad) deal.

Re: Visual Programming Languages – Snapshots

#35

Post by lutusp »

dang wrote: post #34
lutusp wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a suggestion -- have the submission routine search for prior appearances of the offering, especially effective when the URLs are identical. Then diplomatically suggest that the submission might make the submitter look like a craven copycat. :)

HN's dupe detection has always been an honor system. We leave it so porous because we want to give the best stories multiple cracks at the bat. Otherwise randomness and churn, especially during peak hours, would bury far too many. Of course, this also makes the dupe detector easy to game, so we ask people not to game it. A small number of reposts is ok. Several users have complained that randomness and churn are stil…

Nice reply, thank you. Well put.

Re: Visual Programming Languages – Snapshots

#36

Post by ericHosick »

epaladin wrote: post #5

That's an amazingly comprehensive list. Would be great if there was a summary table, or some kind of more organized shorter form view. I'd never heard of Google Web Designer. Looks useful, going to try it out.

> That's an amazingly comprehensive list.

Thank you. There is so much we could do with this list and would like to add more meta-data. We have someone who spends part of their time finding VPLs and adding them. When we run out of VPLs we can find (and there seem to be so many), we'll try to organize them a little better than alphabetical.

Re: Visual Programming Languages – Snapshots

#37

Post by ericHosick »

dang wrote: post #30

This is a dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7274674 . Submitters: please check whether an article has been posted before. In this case, running the title through HN Search returns the above immediately. Once a story has had significant attention on HN, we generally don't allow reposts for about a year.

I wrote the blog post but this one and the one you linked to weren't submitted by me nor do I know who they are. I only found out via an analytics spike and asking someone who emailed me some VPL additions that it was submitted again.

Sorry it was added twice.

Re: Visual Programming Languages – Snapshots

#38

Post by jerf »

ericHosick wrote: post #33
jerf wrote: post #24

I'm glad this is still being updated. When people announce loudly that visual programming is the future, I'm often one being skeptical, and one of the points I try to make is that it's not a new idea. Not only has it been tried, it's been comprehensively tried, in multitudes of domains and variations. If you think this is the solution, you really ought to spend time studying what has already been tried. This make tha…

> I'm glad this is still being updated. We are too. There are a lot of languages out there and as we find them we add them (we have someone who is searching and adding them). > If nothing else, this screenshot display ought to put to rest the idea that visual programming makes programming "intuitive" or "easy to understand".... most of these screenshots are just as opaque at first glance as any block of code is. I'm…

If you want to create a nice general-purpose VPL, go nuts. I won't be offended. I'm skeptical, but open to being proved wrong.

However, I'm really tired of the "Hey, guys! We can just fix programming by MAKING IT VISUAL! How come nobody ever thought of this before? Everybody else must be stupid! I'm going to go work on this for three to six months and revolutionize programming as we know it! Be right back!"

And no, I don't think I'm particularly exaggerating that, up to and including the "everybody else must be stupid!" bit. The periodic conversations on HN every time this comes up definitely have that in them, with a selection of people slapping their metaphorical forehead and going "Yes, that's so true!". VPLs may work, and may be good in certain domains, but they aren't the Holy Grail. If they were, we'd already know, because in fact it's been tried tons of times.

Yes, I know that's not what you intended, but it's part of what's there. It's not a new idea, it's not something that magically makes all complexity go away, it's actually a well-explored field. If you want to contribute to it, I suggest learning about what's actually been explored, and then trying to figure out why your contribution won't have the same failures as the previous attempts at general-purpose VPLs. Maybe you have an answer to that question, in which, like I said, go nuts. But don't waste tons of time replicating the obvious answers, again, all the while thinking Revolution is just around the corner.

Visual programming isn't the only place where this comes up. Another one is "Hey guys, what programming really needs is a PERSISTENT ENVIRONMENT! How come nobody ever thought of this before? Everybody else must be stupid!" followed by a description of, basically, Smalltalk. I've actually clocked some time in persistent environments... there are reasons why it's less desirable than you think. If you can't fix them, or even see them, it's unlikely you're going to revolutionize the world. (It would be interesting to see a pure-functional take on that idea, though, while I'm musing.... a pure functional optional-and reactive environment would actually address a lot of the problems you can get there...)

Re: Visual Programming Languages – Snapshots

#39

Post by dang »

ericHosick wrote: post #37
dang wrote: post #30

This is a dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7274674 . Submitters: please check whether an article has been posted before. In this case, running the title through HN Search returns the above immediately. Once a story has had significant attention on HN, we generally don't allow reposts for about a year.

I wrote the blog post but this one and the one you linked to weren't submitted by me nor do I know who they are. I only found out via an analytics spike and asking someone who emailed me some VPL additions that it was submitted again. Sorry it was added twice.

Not at all; it wasn't your fault. We're just hoping to train the system via feedback.
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