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Comment by ISL | Hacker News Reader

Are there graphical languages that advocates like?

The only graphical language that I've encountered professionally is LabVIEW, and I've yet to see an instance/programming style where it has been superior for anything but quick prototyping.

A language that's editable in both flowchart and traditional formats could be very useful, if executed in a way that doesn't cripple the traditional side of things.

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People seemed to like Scratch [1] a lot a few years ago. Haven't heard much about it since, but IIRC it can switch between flowchart and text mode.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scratch_%28programming_languag...

I have an artist friend who does everything in Max/MSP. At first I was rather dismissive and thought he should just learn to code properly - but the patching environment makes him able to get results incredibly fast - much much faster than I can do with C++ (even using something like Openframeworks)

LabVIEW was eerily satisfying to write code in. Or at least some type of code in. Loops and logic blocks got a tiny bit weird, but overall you could do a lot with sub-vis.

I find myself craving it even 15 years later.

LabVIEW gets really weird once you get to things like loops or, even worse, threading. You will start craving some good old fashioned code very quickly.

I haven't seen any kind of visual coding environment that didn't fall apart quickly once you got to more complex scenarios.

I've heard tons of praise for https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Blueprints/ and I've job-interviewed several people who have built simple games without bothering to type code.

A designer/fabricator friend developes a CNC CAM system in Grasshopper for Rhino, probably faster than I could in code. It is node-based, but more importantly changes can be made live, and with a 3d-engine available preview/visualization/debugging

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