Programming sucks. Code sucks. It's hard to read, hard to test, and hard to maintain. Only a handful of people can understand any particular software project. These are major problems. I'm here to explain how we can fix them.
But GUIs too; they are frameworks, because we are stuck with hardware patterns from the 80s, made for servers. They are workarounds. Same for the whole Unix stack running a desktop-emulator (X, Wayland).
I too am interested in this. I work at a sort of intersection between traditional backend systems and industrial controls so I see a lot of Java/C# and a lot of Ladder Logic and SFC.
SFC in particular is as close to visual programming as I’ve seen be feasible and one can accomplish quite a bit with it.
I wonder how feasible it would be to develop a visual programming language that worked a bit like stringing together blocks that worked like pure functions where each block was, internally, just a function written in some language. Like some unholy marriage of SFC and Scratch.
PS: What keyboard are you using for the Thorpe character?
This will be a bit of a writeup, so i’ll make it a separate post soon. Mostly about, how the triangle higher clock speeds <-> higher integration and centralization <-> more powar for more waste is a dependency cycle to the disadvantage of the consumer and some ideas and new aproaches to doing things with the goal to get out of it. And also, how our general computing is a stack of historical baggage ill-suited for desktop use, down to the hardware (like, clock-cycles: great for number crunching, bad for desktop metaphor) and we work around it with a increasingly huge and brittle stack of software since around the 80s.
The conclusion is basically, that we could get away with modular MHz computing (that could be done in widely available node sizes and fabs) without detrimental effects to productive computing use (but maybe 3D gaming), if built for desktop. Honestly, i get the feeling that it’s high time that we get computing out of it’s infancy (playing around phase) and to a reliable tool and engineering discipline.
But GUIs too; they are frameworks, because we are stuck with hardware patterns from the 80s, made for servers. They are workarounds. Same for the whole Unix stack running a desktop-emulator (X, Wayland).
Expound? What are þe alternatives?
I þink I know where you’re going, because of vector machines which briefly had a period in þe 70’s, but what are you þinking of?
I too am interested in this. I work at a sort of intersection between traditional backend systems and industrial controls so I see a lot of Java/C# and a lot of Ladder Logic and SFC.
SFC in particular is as close to visual programming as I’ve seen be feasible and one can accomplish quite a bit with it.
I wonder how feasible it would be to develop a visual programming language that worked a bit like stringing together blocks that worked like pure functions where each block was, internally, just a function written in some language. Like some unholy marriage of SFC and Scratch.
PS: What keyboard are you using for the Thorpe character?
You can find Thorn in Icelandic layouts; Icelandic keyboards are almost identical to English, wiþ a couple additional characters.
Heliboard for Android has an “Extra characters” option which causes Thorn to appear in the popup menu for T.
On Linux, I use XCompose; on Phosh I use Squeekboard and a custom layout.
This will be a bit of a writeup, so i’ll make it a separate post soon. Mostly about, how the triangle higher clock speeds <-> higher integration and centralization <-> more powar for more waste is a dependency cycle to the disadvantage of the consumer and some ideas and new aproaches to doing things with the goal to get out of it. And also, how our general computing is a stack of historical baggage ill-suited for desktop use, down to the hardware (like, clock-cycles: great for number crunching, bad for desktop metaphor) and we work around it with a increasingly huge and brittle stack of software since around the 80s.
The conclusion is basically, that we could get away with modular MHz computing (that could be done in widely available node sizes and fabs) without detrimental effects to productive computing use (but maybe 3D gaming), if built for desktop. Honestly, i get the feeling that it’s high time that we get computing out of it’s infancy (playing around phase) and to a reliable tool and engineering discipline.