Show HN: We've created a visual live-programming environment for .NET | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: We've created a visual live-programming environment for .NET

visualprogramming.net

117 pointsjoreg23 comments

helo HN, joreg here, one of the devvvvs team of 5. After more than 7 years in R&D we've just released the second major release of our visual live programming environment vvvv, titled "vvvv gamma". It uses our language "VL" which compiles to C# using roslyn and it is using state hot-reload to allow you to modify programs while they are running.

It combines metaphors known from dataflow programming with others known from OOP and functional programming, but all visual. Still if you want you can extend it with C# code easily and even consume any .NET library from nuget.org directly without the need to write any plugin-wrapper boilerplate code.

From previous HN discussions we know you all have an opinion on visual programming, so please try vvvv, we hope it to be different to what you expect. It is free for non-commercial use without any restrictions, no registration required. Windows only for now.

Looking forward to your feedback and please let us know if this is something that could be useful for you!

Hey this looks really sharp. It seems a bit like Processing but for .NET, is that a fair characterization and if not how would you say your project differs? (Asking only for elucidation and to maybe stimulate some discussion on the thread, definitely not commenting in the vein of “Processing does this so what’s the point”. A world with more tools like this is a good thing.)

I don't think processing has anything to do with visual programming.

Right, the most obvious difference is that vvvv is visual. Then comes the "live-programming" aspect which means that in vvvv you don't "edit-compile-fixcompiletimeerror-compile-run" but you always only run and modify the running program. Compilation happens in the background. If there is a compile-time error, vvvv points that out for you, but keeps running. runtime-errors also don't necessarily completely stop the program. So while in the end you can certainly achieve the same things with vvvv and processing, the way you do things is very different.

Indeed very interesting and Processing comes to mind when I looked at the visuals, however it is very interesting that integrates with .net. Can F# be used to drive workflows/scenes? Any plug-ins for this?

I will definitely play with it. Looks fantastic, thanks for sharing with us

There are no plugins: You can simply use any .NET dll by referencing it, just as you would in C# or F#. Here is a repo with very simple demos of how to write your own nodes using C# or F#: https://github.com/vvvv/vl.demolib

This looks incredible and I can't wait to try it out.

One thing that is confusing me as a newcomer: why does the project have 2 very different websites (visualprogramming.net and vvvv.org)?

Also why the name "vvvv"?

https://vvvv.org/documentation/meaningofvvvv

Vereniging Van Vlaamse Vliegfissers aka Association of Flemish Fly Fishermen

I wasn't expecting that. ;)

But seriously, I was expecting some kind of explanation or corporate mission statement, but all I got was visual repetitions of VVVV showing up in various designs and architecture.

It's kind of cool.

We now have 2 products "vvvv beta" the one that we first released in 2002 and "vvvv gamma" which we just released. We need to get them both represented on vvvv.org eventually but for a start it was easier to create a second page.

> Commercial use includes funded academic research

That’s a very strange definition of commercial projects. Research works by getting external funding precisely because the results aren’t usually directly commercialisable.

Right, like this it reads weird. It does not mean that we consider funded academic research "commercial", but that in addition to what is commonly understood as "commercial use of vvvv" we're also asking teams that have funding to support our research by buying licenses. We wanted to make a distinction to education, where vvvv is completely free to use.

Many years ago I did a just for fun project with vvvv, a virtual graffiti wall.

This involved a webcam that captured the graffiti input in form of infrared beacons and two outputs that were projected onto large projector screens - one for drawing and one to show the resulting grafitti to spectators.

I've been a text based coder all my life and had no experience with graphical programming before, but the ease of use and stability of vvvv was just incredible.

I would encourage anyone to try it.

Id like to share these tutorials ran across https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBTgwgsWWcT_VMMrwsy3Ao7...

I normally hate node based programming because I'm basically relearning programming but with nodes and the systems are a lot of times opaque so I can't read it at a glance to see what it does, but with this custom node stuff I could get behind that.

I'm actually a bit excited to try this out.

Did you try it already? How was your impression?

I have used VVVV in the past and really enjoyed it, and any update to it makes me happy (I stopped using it when I switched to Linux, basically).

However, I can't stop feeling a bit suspicious of the date that this was posted, hahaha.

Kudos for using GetTogether instead of Meetup, Matrix/Riot instead of Discord or Slack, Discourse instead of whatever close source alternative. It matters a lot for some of us. Is vvvv open source or libre too?

And thanks for pointing this out! I'm afraid the core of vvvv is not open source but all of its libraries are. And also please follow us on mastodon: https://mastodon.xyz/@vvvv

It's looks like a solid product. Now don't add any more features, just concentrate on acquiring and teaching users.

That said, it could probably work well on a touch interface if you removed the need to type/keyboard. And could probably be used by kids if you added more icons. I'm thinking that someone that looks for something like this is probably OK with shapes/visual, while a traditional programmer would prefer text.

Any relation to VNOS?

Most certainly not. What is it?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com