[seanmcdirmid]

Abstraction != encapsulation. The point is about the node, not its contents. What does the node mean as a metaphor? What is it's idea?

Language is a very powerful technology that nature evolved for us. We could not have this conversation with graphs or paintings...we need words! Many programming problems are also best solved with words, though you could definitely wire something up the old fashioned way.

[tunesmith]

Can't this same criticism be made about (word-based) programming languages? Programming languages communicate the what or the how pretty well, but not the why.

[seanmcdirmid]

I never said anything about why. Even if you are just instructing, do you care to see a wordless video or read an instruction manual? Actually it's not even that...which one is easier to write? The descriptive power of language is great when issuing imperatives; it must have been very hard to organize before language was developed 50-100 kya.

You can still communicate spatial concepts better with pictures, and maybe a hybrid approach might work, structured edited languages are very popular as vpls, but think about code with interspersed diagrams.