Re: simple vs complex languages

Thant Tessman <thant@acm.org> writes:
|> I used to take an interest in what at one time were called "visual
|> languages" (before Microsoft so brutishly usurped the term). There were
|> a few novel ones, but more common were applications that allowed user
|> customization by way of a graphical representation of modules and wires.
|> The earliest I am aware of was the "language" for programming the Evans
|> & Sutherland PS 300 graphics workstation.


Could be, but some of the flowchart conventions definitely count as a
language of sorts. They were not, of course, converted to machine
code automatically - but they WERE converted algorithmically, so it
could in theory have been done.


|> Inspired by what I was learning at the time about functional programming
|> languages and type systems, I convinced myself that the language of
|> modules-and-wires could be extended with just a few choice visual
|> metaphors to gain all the expressiveness of a textual programming language.


Hmm. A lot of people have tried and failed. Yes, I think that you
could handle the simpler sorts of pure functional language that way,
but they aren't very flexible, expressive or even useful as general
purpose programming languages.


|> Unfortunately, I've never had the opportunity to fully persue the idea.


A pity. If you COULD do that, it would be a breakthrough.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.
[All the flowcharts I ever used were made mechanically from the code, not
the other way around. -John]

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