Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!usc!ginosko!ctrsol!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!uflorida!ukma!cwjcc!hal!ncoast!davewt From: davewt@NCoast.ORG (David Wright) Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng Subject: Re: Visual Languages Message-ID: <1989Sep13.224233.8796@NCoast.ORG> Date: 13 Sep 89 22:42:33 GMT References: Reply-To: davewt@ncoast.ORG (David Wright) Distribution: comp Organization: North Coast Public Access UN*X, Cleveland, OH Lines: 20 There was (and may still be for all I know) a visual (mouse-based) language available for the Amiga called "AiRT". It had icons for each programming construct, and you could drag them around, draw lines connecting them, etc. When you wanted to do things like text comparisons, you would use the keyboard to fill in a blank with the text you wanted, but that was about the only thing you needed it (the keyboard) for. One of the problems with any icon-based language is that it is simply too slow to enter programs in when compared with using a keyboard. I can type in "if (a == 34)" MUCH faster than anyone could move a mouse pointer around to select the IF icon, select the variable, and key in the check amount etc... Another problem is how to print your programs out efficiently, while the biggest problem is that programming requires an understanding of programming fundmentals, no matter what language you use. Simply making the keywords easy to remember and big (COBOL) or having no keywords (AiRT), does nothing to help people understand just what a structure or a pointer is.... Dave