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Comment by nylonstrung | Hacker News Reader

I actually like node based editors but LLMs are the nail in the coffin.

Visual programming just doesn't make sense in a world where "low-code" users can safely be assumed to be using llms

I expect I can drag and drop nodes to solve a problem faster than you can vibe-code a solution. Plus a node-based solution is likely to be more maintainable if your aren't a coder.

Let's see! I'm actually working on a node-based programming LLM paradigm for an app I'm building.

The idea is that you can write the 'nodes' in plain english rather than pre-written blocks, and then the arrows indicate the flow but don't need to absolutely encode everything (closer to a flow chart). The process of writing the flow chart helps define and document the business logic, and the flows are totally clear because everything is encoded into a state machine.

I am unconvinced that natural language is the best way to describe a data transformation problem.

My personal sense is business logic which involves processes with lots of steps rather than data transformation.

I’m unconvinced that code is the best way to describe business logic, so here we are! :)

(Code is probably the best way to encode business logic, but most users can’t read it or edit it, which makes it bad)

Good luck with your project. It is a tough problem you're solving, but hopefully your idea has wings.

Thanks! It's in a very narrow domain (Handset UI flows in Warehouse Management Systems) so i'm hoping that helps, but it's very domain specific and certainly not anything mainstream.

In a world where node based editors and code are also equivalent to LLMs, it's not super clear to me that the future will not be nicely visualized and understandable nodes (generated by the LLM to explain things to me and to get guidence) kept in sync with the codebase.

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