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Comment by simoneau | Hacker News Reader

Look at the complexity of the solution needed to solve a simple challenge[1] on the demo pages:

https://i.imgur.com/B6qFqww.gif

The blocks nest four deep. It's a good illustration of how hard hard it is to make graphical programming easier than regular programming.

[1] https://blockly-demo.appspot.com/static/demos/plane/index.ht...

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It's not really worse than a Lisp:

  (def seats (+ 2 (* 4 first-class-rows) (* 5 second-class-rows)))

blocks-based languages were designed mainly for education, especially targeting younger users such as children. as experienced programmers, we often take it for granted how demoralizing syntax errors can be; blocks languages eliminate that giant hurdle for novices to help get them hooked on programming before they move onto traditional text-based languages.

I think you are missing the more important aspects like the fact that you can run this live much easier since you are less likely to create something that has a syntax error.

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