| "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." -Einstein We are failing to communicate here. Did you watch Bret Victor's from yesterday? I’ll do my best to explain.
I said I agreed with most of your critiques on visual programming, it's your assertion that we've tried it all and just have to deal with the complexity that I was referring to. Einstein’s refusal to accept status quo, led him to that beautiful, simple equation. I was not saying that visual programming is or is not that solution. I was questioning your dismissal of it at this stage. My 2nd point about the 3d Minory Report UI was a whimsical example of being open minded towards technology. Which is why I said "Like what if" I was trying to demonstrate a creative solution to the problem by combining it with an outside tech. I doubt it is a viable solution. On second thought, programming with a Leap Motion controller on an Oculus Rift display sounds very cool, but of course google beat me to it in the 2013 I/O. > It's like saying -- what if the problem with understanding French is that we need better visual representations of French? Of course, every field takes training, but some representations do have steeper learning curves. I started off learning simplified Chinese. After I changed representations to pinyin, I was able to learn words about 5-10x faster. So I don't see how your analogy holds with natural languages. > Likewise, if I presented you with a perfect 3D model.... If you describe it in words or show me a flow chart, I will pick up the flow chart much faster. Machine code, not so fast. NoFlo does not limit you to the visual editor. You can also use FBP text language if you desire. > But I also have enough experience with many, many codebases and have spent years learning techniques for simplifying and expressing complex domain problems. And the class of visual representation of those domains, of which NoFlo is just one more iteration, has very limited utility in that regard. "The most dangerous thought you can have as a creative person is to think you know what you're doing." -Bret Victor I don't know how much experience you really have with FBP like NoFlo. I have done some programming in LabVIEW, and I found it much easier to reason about concurrency than thread based languages. You may think it's a waste of time with its "limited utility" but I'm with MZT on this one, "Let a hundred flowers bloom" |