[david927]

So do you use text files for storage or a database? Is your company's accounting system in Word or Oracle?

Are programs text, like a novel, or is it data? And to find out, would you query Moby Dick? Not really -- at least that's not how it's meant to be consumed. You read it from beginning to end.

Would you read your program from beginning to end or would you query it? You query it, exclusively. I submit that programs are data, not text, and visual programming then becomes like data visualization. Text is holding us back.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

> Is your company's accounting system in Word or Oracle?

Accounting uses numbers, which in this context is text. If you replace a spreadsheet with a graph, your accountants will murder you.

[david927]

which in this context is text

Ha! Nice try. You program in a text file. You don't get to somehow call that a spreadsheet just to make your argument sound better.

My whole point is that we need to turn that free text into a spreadsheet (from which graphs can be produced) and "your accountants will thank you".

[michaelmrose]

Why is it that only very simple programs can we written effectively with spreadsheets and that setups where complex arrangements of linked spreadsheets and databases are described as horrible to work with by the people that have to work with them.

Is it possible that nearly every professional is right and you are wrong and text is an effective means to represent computation.

[david927]

Why is it that only very simple programs can we written effectively with spreadsheets and that setups where complex arrangements of linked spreadsheets and databases are described as horrible to work with by the people that have to work with them?

I completely understand where you're coming from. I'm saying, "try to imagine how it should be," not, "how it is." Those experiences are horrible because current spreadsheets are for simple functions and nothing more.

Is it possible that nearly every professional is right and you are wrong and text is an effective means to represent computation?

I guess this is where we disagree. I see the software industry as a mess and every professional as a person who was given one part of a Rube Goldberg contraption to be an expert on. The contraption works, to be sure, but it boils an egg in a hundred arcane steps. Given the state of our art, we have no leg to stand on to say what is and is not an effective means to represent computation. Normally a billion professionals would lend clout to your argument, but in the case of our industry, we know that they just staff a million abstruse contraptions. It just means we lack imagination and ownership: we're professionals, yes, but on whatever junk we're handed.

It wasn't always like that. We have seen that Computer Science doesn't really advance, but what is fascinating is that maybe 90% of those pushing for it to advance are of the original, older, generation that brought us that innovation in the first place. Max Planck once said something to the effect of, "Science advances one funeral at a time." I worry that Computer Science retreats one funeral at a time. Slowly we're losing those from the time when our thinking wasn't constrained with current tools; failed efforts were taken as learning points, not barriers; and no one viewed current technology as something the gods handed down to them but as something they created (maybe the day before), so they were constantly evaluating it.

Yes, the future of software development has to be away from free text toward data, and it follows as a logical syllogism. I was about to add that that is my opinion, but it's not so much of an opinion as a conclusion. While it's absolutely fair to wonder what that means, we can't brush it away because we already have the best Rube Goldberg contraption we could ever have.

[alephr]

So, to be clear, you're saying a spreadsheet is the same thing as Word or vim?

[afarrell]

Right, code is data. But the interface to write and modify that data is text.

Consider, how long does it take you to draw an infographic representing the percentage of the United States that has a college education? How long does it take to modify it when you realise it is a mistake

Now how long does it take you to represent/change that data with text?

[david927]

Your example is strange. Changing the text and changing the data would require the same amount of time. And a graph would, in fact, instantly put that change into context.

Right, code is data.

Not now, though. Currently, code is text -- it's not data. That's the problem. And, yes, currently, drawing it instead of typing out the text is a horrible idea. We agree.

But remember, currently, we're failing. Software is a disgrace of an industry, in all honestly. It's mired in undue complexity. It's a Rube Goldberg contraption that we all, somehow, take seriously.

Imagine a better future. Imagine visualizing a complex set of rules and seeing all the places where a change would cause knock-on effects. Imagine being able to manage your code base in a way that doesn't require you to download it all into your head. Hell, imagine a decent IDE. The first step for all of that is to move it from text to data.

[kpil]

I think you are chasing something that does not exist.

While i submit to the idea that programs are "data", and could be represented not just like text, the expressiveness when using a visual representation is small, but the exactness is as high as normal languages.

I've seen large visual-programming programs, and they explode into complexity, and I think there is a reason for that, the expressiveness of a symbolic language using text is so much higher.

Could we increase the expressiveness even further? English have high expressiveness but is inexact.

I don't think it's possible to increase the expressiveness and keep the precision - at least without some sort of intelligent agent that can reject interpretations that makes no sense.

So - when general AI is invented, we can probably soon write programs that are very inexact, highly expressive, but still work.

Until then, we will have to continue wrestle down the computer to obey our if-statements, one by one.

[joshmarinacci]

Visual programming does not have to mean 100% not text.

https://joshondesign.com/2014/08/22/typopl

[yorwba]

You talk about the compiler having to be sufficiently smart, but I think you actually just need good IDE support, then you can store the code as text but display a nicer rendering.

E.g. the image literal could actually be Image.loadFromPath("../.../image.png"), but you don't see the code unless you want to; and if you drag and drop a file into your program, the IDE automatically inserts the corresponding code.

[rsl7]

Yes, there are probably lots of useful interaction methods to be found in between text files and the "boxes and arrows" visual programming (circuit design) model.

[afarrell]

> Changing the text and changing the data would require the same amount of time.

Really? really?

Open up powerpoint, openoffice, or whatever you use to make infographics. Also open up vim, atom, or whatever you use to edit text.

Time yourself clicking and dragging to make a graph in one and then typing to write a number in the other.

> Imagine a decent IDE

I'm imagining something where you are able to select visual elements without either clicking and dragging or doing an O(n) walk by hitting alt-tab. But I can't imagine how you acheive that, much less efficiently specify how you connect things up and how you write automated tests.

Some of this is my failure of imagination, but its still on you to provide the sketch of a proposal if you want to convince.

[alephr]

How do you navigate code now? Do you walk through code line by line or do you search or use some kind of navigation that relies on the structure of code?

I agree that a concrete product is probably going to be required to convince people who aren't good at thinking outside of what already exists, but these kinds of comparisons just feel absurd. Maybe a better way to think about this sort of thing is "how can the structure of code be used to simplify and improve working with it"; the term visual programming is just too loaded in negative ways.

Edit: I don't mean to sound insulting when I talk about thinking outside of what exists. It's not always an easy thing to do. But it becomes an issue when you it causes you to let previous attempts narrow your views on what something is.

Visual programming doesn't have to be, say, exactly what's scratch is today. It doesn't even have to be close. The two keys IMO are utilizing the structure of code as well as the inherent visual processing power humans have.

This doesn't mean no text, it means expanding how we think about operating on and viewing code in a way that makes it easier (and thus more productive) to do.

[afarrell]

Okay. I'm on board with you there. I suspect that SQL or data-model rendering would be the easiest place to start there--allowing you to auto-generate a visualisation from SQL. If that got widespread enough, then it would become a standard way of representing the data that is currently represented by text. That means you can build interactions on top of that understanding.