[VorpalWay]

We do have syntax highlighting these days. And our editors work like hypertext, where I can go to definitions, find usages, get inheritance hierarchies etc. Quite a ways from your suggestion, but also a few steps removed from a type writer.

I think any such leap would have to be a really big one to catch on though, due to inertia. Colorforth is not exactly popular, and I can't think of any other examples.

[jmalicki]

With LLMs you can write your code by hand drawing a diagram on a touch screen.

[ModernMech]

This has been possible since Sketchpad in 1963.

[jmalicki]

Can sketchpad do this? (relatively simple, but showing what an LLM can do with a sketch with very little prompting, full transcript of further typing included)

https://jmalicki.github.io/sp500-chart/

[WillAdams]

Yes, but there don't seem to be any current implementations which are more than academic exercises (I'd love to be wrong about that and be pointed to something which I could try).

[ModernMech]

The reason for this is that we've been trying to draw code by hand since 1963 and it doesn't really work out well except in limited domains. Maybe it'll work better with LLMs tho, I guess we'll see.

[WillAdams]

Not sure what an LLM brings to the table here.

I've been trying to learn traditional CAD, and found this observation enticing:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31471109

>Parametric CAD, in my view, is a perfect example of "visual programming", you have variables, iteration/patterning reducing repetition, composability of objects/sketches again reducing repetition, modularity of design though a hierarchy of assemblies. The alignment between programming principles and CAD modelling principles, while not immediately obvious, are very much there. An elegantly designed CAD model is just as beautiful (in its construction) as elegantly written code.

Obviously, it is fitting that a visual product is amenable to a visual approach/solution, so my question is, what programming environment for general purpose is most like to a parametric CAD system?

[ModernMech]

Yeah I think CAD is a perfect domain for this kind of thing, and IIRC that was one of the original target applications for Sketchpad, where Sutherland demonstrated constraint-based bridge design where the constraints were sketched in.

I agree I don't think LLMs really change the equation much.

For another look at where drawing-based programming has gone, see Dynamicland by Bret Victor. No LLMs required.