[petra]

Bubble is such a great tool, and you really put a lot of attention to the details. I really enjoyed trying it.

My question is: So one big strength of textual languages vs visual tools(and DSL's) is expressivity - visual languages are limited to their specific domains, while you can use, say, python to build complete systems.

Do you see this distinction remaining ? or we'll have some way to build multi-domain systems visually ?

[estraschnov]

Thanks for the kind words :)

Yes, this distinction will probably remain, but we're trying to push where we need to get back to textual languages. If you need to build a machine learning algorithm, I'm not sure visual tools will ever be the way to go (though i'd love to see this).

But both ways work well together. In Bubble, you'd build your optimization algorithm as a plugin, and then you (and even better, others, non technical colleagues) will be able to use the action you've built visually. The Bubble interface becomes the common language between business, product people and coders.

[vvanders]

That's actually very close to how modern game engines with with large teams(substitute designers/artists for product/business) work.

Very cool stuff, kudos.

[estraschnov]

Yes gaming is more advanced that general purposes applications for some reasons. Let's change that :)

[vvanders]

Yeah, I've tried it at a few shops and it tends to be a cultural problem more than a technical one.

It's also really hard to build the right tools. It's very easy to sink 3-6mo into a tool that doesn't get a ton of usage because you either don't have partners on the other side who are invested or didn't solve the right problems.

For it to work right you need a lot of factors to go just right. When it does it's pretty incredible but feels a bit like trying to catch lightning in bottle.

[Risord]

I think if we want explore ways to connect these worlds we should do same as we are trying to do our architecture: separate view and logic. Most programming languages are quite messy if you think those as abstract model and therefore compilers won't have very good API (if any) for building application from non-textual inputs.

On the other hand views should be much more data-oriented. For example user actions should be copy-pasteable, editable as data and therefore usable for automation. -Text? Easy "it has been since 60's". -Visual (button click, drag&drop etc.)? "IMPOSSIBLE!". I claim that it's just bad habit which started as "MVP"-syndrome, continued as "Typical user won't..."-syndrome and finally ended up to "This is what GUI is"-syndrome.

Yea I think I may cut some corners but I cannot see any fundamental barriers here. Therefore I am currently researching this area and hopefully get something out at some point (or die tryin’).

[DonaldFisk]

Many visual languages are limited to specific application types, but there are also general purpose ones.