[skydhash]

You're saying that text are 1D, while we're saying that it's not. If it were, we would write text on a long rolling tape. If it were, we would write matrices like this:

  [1 2 3; 4 5 6; 7 8 9]

Instead of

  |1 2 3|
  |4 5 6|
  |7 8 9|

The concept of vertical space to separate blocks of text is important. The concept of physically moving the next chapter to a separate sheets of paper in books is equally important.

In code we split the code into files. Then within the files we arrange the code with lines and indentation. That's all for humans. The computer eagerly throws those away.

ADDENDUM

> meaning that algorithm concepts are best represented in text? Again, I doubt that very much.

One of the (most?) important things that algorithms encode is time. Because an algorithm is a description of a process. The only good representation would have been to snapshot the evolution of state.

But that's wasteful. So instead we have statements and expressions that we assume are atomic. Then we have identifiers for referencing and finally we have procedures and functions to cluster those statements and the associated call/return pattern or the single jump/goto to economize on writing.

So code is at least 2D as operations are described in a line and the lines are arranged by time. But the lines are not linear, instead they are grouped into labelled units and the proper evolution are functions call and jump instructions.

[noosphr]

A matrix is better represented as a nested list of lists:

   ((1 2 3)(4 5 6)(6 7 8))

Of course you ignore that representing a tensor of rank higher than 2 is just as difficult in 2d as a matrix is in 1d.

[Towaway69]

Sure, I can use ascii graphics to represent 2D shapes in text but that's not a direct representation of the original object:

    \   |   /
      .-'-.
   -- (   ) --
      `-.-'
    /   |   \

That's a sun.

Much like HN is full of textual description and links to images - this entire forum demonstrates the limitations of a textual visual representation.

Yes it works but it's far more verbose than an image would be. Hence an image is worth a 1000 words. And hence HN is more verbose than it needs to be. So is coding more verbose than it needs to be. That's why DSLs (Domain Specific Language) get invented: to reduce the verbosity.

And so it is with a 2D representation: it reduces the verbosity required to transport ideas and concepts. UML is another invention to reduce the verbosity and increase the understanding of the representation of complex systems. Yes UML can be represented as text (see Mermaid[1]) but the UML image is probably a lot more understandable than the Mermaid representation.

[1]: https://github.com/mermaid-js/mermaid

[skydhash]

An image is not a good representation either. Where is heat? Where is size? Where is gravity? Images are useful, but so is text, each in a different way. The nice thing about text is that it encodes a much larger representation of something in only a few. So I can type 'sun' and it's useful enough to get my meaning without me showing you a picture every once in a while.

So yes in certain context, a diagram may be more useful to get a point across. But once that shared understanding has taken place, Text are more economical.

A lot of foundational aspects of computing are too abstract in nature to be able to do a good 2D or 3D representation. So what we do is transforming them into streams of symbols and do symbolic manipulations on them. And with symbolic manipulation, you get abstraction.

The main issue is that a lot of people are not good at symbolic representation and manipulation. Because it's abstract and it's entirely a product of the mind.

The power of computers is that they can do the tedious part of symbolic manipulations, repeatedly and without failing. And with peripherals interfacing, they can translate symbols from/to reality.

[Towaway69]

> The power of computers is that they can do the tedious part of symbolic manipulations, repeatedly and without failing. And with peripherals interfacing, they can translate symbols from/to reality.

Exactly what I am implying: using the computer to provide a better abstraction is what is needed.

I agree that text has a certain universality however as you also say, a lot folks don't work with symbols, they work with images (for example) or colours (synesthesia) or shapes perhaps.

Besides move up in dimensions is a continuation of a natural progression in computing: cogs, switchs, punch cards, keyboards, mouse, touch .... VR, AR etc. Currently we're (coders) are somewhere between keyboard and mouse while others (most folks that use smart phones) are at touch. Smart phones users are also programmers who code their device using largely visual concepts (at least I've not seen anyone set their alarm using a terminal on a smart phone!).

Now "Oh but it's not possible to represent those concepts that we work with visually, only text will do" argument doesn't really hold water since it just demonstrates a lack of imagination to find a way to use other representations for those concepts that are essential to programming. Strangely that was possible when moving from switches to keyboards, why shouldn't it be possible even further.

Recently I had the thought that in fact, textual programming (as a paradigm) is now the sole domain of AIs. I've heard so many coders say they have not coded a line of code in months/years, AI is doing all the coding for them. Hence, I think, we humans (those of us here who are humans) should step up to the next domain for coding: 2D and then 3D and explore improved abstractions for the concepts we try to represent in a textual manner (even these concepts are abstractions of the real world).

[skydhash]

> Now "Oh but it's not possible to represent those concepts that we work with visually, only text will do" argument doesn't really hold water since it just demonstrates a lack of imagination to find a way to use other representations for those concepts that are essential to programming

I did not say that. I said that we do not have good representations of those concepts.

The thing is that programming is rarely the end goal of things. It's merely the help. There's often an actual task or process that existed before we got to the programming itself. The goal is to automate some subset or all of it using computers. And programming is about constructing a model of the task/process, encode the state and the rules that govern the evolution of the state, and then interfacing with the real world to get data (sensors), manipulate them according, and then produce actions (with actuators).

Text is universal because it's symbolic (and with it come abstraction which is recursive in that form). And we managed to get a good representation of time (which is also a key part of the task/process) with vertical alignment. And we can implement extra dimensions that matters to comprehension with modularization and whats not. The cons are that symbol manipulation can be abstract and requires a good deal of training to transfer that knowledge.

The issue with most 2D representation is that they're not flexible enough. Symbols are recursive. Meaning to encode more things, you just needs to repeat symbols. And then you can use symbols to encode group of symbols. Like we have 1 and 0 as the base of everything, then we encoded the alphabet using ASCII, then we encoded programming concepts using tokens (group of letters and other special symbols) and grammar, then we goes one to define higher other of things like variable definition, functions, types annotation, which just more syntax and grammar rules.

> Besides move up in dimensions is a continuation of a natural progression in computing: cogs, switchs, punch cards, keyboards, mouse, touch .... VR, AR

That's an evolution in interfacing. And the one thing about interfacing is that it has to adapt to the physical reality of human interactions. Which is often not great for the actual reality of the tasks/process that needs to happen. In the physical world, it's often physical laws and causal order that does all the work, we are only the perturbation force. We move the steering wheel and the car turns, but that's mostly due to mechanical laws than the actual act of turning the wheel.

With programming, the task is often to recreate all the laws that govern the evolution of a process and then offers an interface for controlling that evolution. 2D and 3D diagrams are very bad at describing ALL the relations between the different components of a system. Let's take the "F = ma" equation: How would you represent the force, mass, and acceleration concepts in order to create like a very simple physic engine? We can create a special interface for that, but that interface would be likely bad for creating a bookkeeping software or a text editors.

Symbolic representation is universal because there's only two things that matters, the symbols and the rules of notation. And the genius of the Turing Machine (and equivalent) is that at the foundation of things, you do not need a lot of symbols and a lot of rules. You can go from one system to the next by creating a translation mechanism. But if you leave the symbolic world, you lose universality for power. That's happen with GUI software and other 2D and 3D representation of things. Which is why you see that professional software have a scripting layer or a plugin mechanism.

[Towaway69]

> And the genius of the Turing Machine (and equivalent) is that at the foundation of things, you do not need a lot of symbols and a lot of rules.

I think at the core of our arguments lies this. Turing representation, i.e., the Turing Machine is the fundamental computing engine that can represent any problem and provide a solution to that problem, in whatever n-space dimension the problem finds itself in. It is the binary representation of any problem space.

Yet no one uses it to do the real world problem solving. Why? Because its symbolism is to verbose for even the simplest solution.

Herein lies what I have come to realise: its verbosity that a 2D representation can reduce at the expensive of flexibility. As the textual representation is a trade-off, so is the visual one.

Text happens to be extremely flexible for problem representation and solution but it is less verbose than a Turing Machine and based on the self principles, so we can be assured of its universality. Yet textual representation can still become very verbose and hard to understand (hence version control and diff'ing tools).

A 2D solution can be even less verbose at the price of flexibility - a 2D representation is more bound to the problem space being addressed.

I think the win comes when a recognition arises that points to a visual representation as being less verbose and therefore more understandable because the problem space is confined and well understood that there is no longer a need for texts flexibility. This being akin to a DSL definition for the problem space.

[lukan]

"Yes it works but it's far more verbose than an image would be. "

The word "sun" is less verbose than your drawing, but more clear(I would not have recognized it as a sun) and has all the information implied.