[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.