On 4/19/2016 9:38 PM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
So-called "visual programming environments" (think: Visual Basic) are
well-suited to laying out the interface of GUI applications. They might
even be useful for extremely limited mini-languages like regexes. I'm told
that there are still people who think that UML diagrams are a good idea.
They're probably good for dataflow programming. But ultimately, to be
productive with one, you still need text.
As for "visual programming languages" (languages with an inherent visual
form which lacks any simple or obvious text equivalent), they've been a
dead-end. Even languages like Scratch cannot do without text. Look at
the "Hello World" program here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Scratch_Hello_World.png
The graphical elements are pure presentation, to make it more palatable to
children and beginners.
I think it is at least as important that the output is pictorial or even
aural, then having the input text (and you are right, it is text)
colored. By comparison, factorial functions (and most calculation
examples) are rather boring.
Don't think that I'm opposed to such visual presentations. Look at the
sample code shown at the top of the page here:
https://scratch.mit.edu/
It kinda looks like Hypertalk syntax, which some of you may remember I'm
exceedingly fond of. There's no reason why a GUI editor couldn't display
Python code using such "building block" structure. E.g. indented blocks
could use colour and shape cues to reinforce the structure of the code,
just as Scratch does.
That is an interesting idea. Perhaps I have been stuck in either/or
thinking -- either graphical or textual. With tk Text (IDLE), it would
be possible to tag each (4-space) indent with a color for the compound
statememt keywork causing the indent.
And if you want to see another reason why text rocks as the core for
programming languages?
"Oh no! We're having trouble displaying this Scratch project.
If you are on a mobile phone or tablet, try visiting this project on a
computer.
If you're on a computer, your Flash player might be disabled, missing, or
out of date."
I had to enable Flash for this site. What are they going to do when
Flash is dead rather than just dying? (Get with html5, perhaps?)
Yeah, thanks guys. Really helpful.
--
Terry Jan Reedy
--
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
