However, as a counter-example to the negative examples of visual tools, I would point out the usefulness of the way Microsoft Access represents SQL table joins visually. I've long thought this a superior way of representing this than with SQL statements and have wondered why it never seemed to catch on, though I know at least one SQL expert who uses this capability of Access to help her build complex joins for her Oracle queries: she does the join visually in Access, then copies the generated SQL into Oracle, perhaps with small adjustments for syntactical differences.
On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 9:05 PM, David Ward Lambert <[email protected]>wrote: > I recall having used two visual programming tools. Neither experience > was positive. There was a graphics package through which I was to > connect the outputs to inputs of various functions to transform data > into beautiful useful picture. I could connect a red output to a red > input, and generate a blue output for the blue input. I was able to > make it work but the reality was there seemed to be many more possible > ways to connect the routines than there were data flow graphs that > actually made sense. I think the product was from IBM and within 5 > years I'll call it 1992. Did I use it enough to become fluent? No. > The other was LabVIEW which was a whole lot of fun but terribly > cumbersome. After visually programming equations for a few days we > realized that LabVIEW could evaluate typed algebraic expressions. > > -----------context----------- > Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2013 19:01:01 -0500 > From: Dan Bron <[email protected]> > To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [Jprogramming] Programming Literacy - gaps > Message-ID: <[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 > > The other rabbit hole this led me down, though it was less mind-blowing > than the video I just posted, is relevant to my line of work, and I'd > like to get some of your (Forum members') thoughts on it. Here's the > quote that caught my eye: > > Note that neither spreadsheets, nor Victor's examples, attempt to > hide logic > creation behind a point-and-click interface. > > Purely visual programming is a red herring, and history is littered > with the > corpses of products that have attempted to offer programming without > code. > --------------------------- > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > -- Devon McCormick, CFA ^me^ at acm. org is my preferred e-mail ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
