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Comment by Almondsetat | Hacker News Reader

One can appreaciate striving for simplicity (a programming language that can be taught and explained with pen and paper), but one must also consider that computers are meta-devices.

Before computers, we could write things only on paper, either with our hands or a typewriter. So, naturally, when computers came about, the way of thinking about programming was very text-driven, with an emphasis on what a typewriter could represent.

But then, code could be written directly with computers, opening up more typesetting possibilities thanks to keyboards not being bound anymore by the mechanical limitations of typewriters. You could add keys and combinations to your heart's desire, and they would be natively digital and unlimited.

Now, with graphics, both 2D and 3D, and a myriad or other HIDs, shouldn't we try to make another cognitive jump?

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It's very strange to see handwriting lumped in with typewriting, to be described as limited relative to screens! Iverson notation was a 2D format (both in handwriting and typeset publications) making use of superscripts, subscripts, and vertical stacking like mathematics. It was linearized to allow for computer execution, but the designers described this as making the language more general rather than less:

> The practical objective of linearizing the typography also led to increased uniformity and generality. It led to the present bracketed form of indexing, which removes the rank limitation on arrays imposed by use of superscripts and subscripts.

(https://www.jsoftware.com/papers/APLDesign.htm)

I think this is more true than they realized at that time. The paper describes the outer product, which in Iverson notation was written as a function with a superscript ∘ and in APL became ∘. followed by the function. In both cases only primitive functions were allowed, that is, single glyphs. However, APL's notation easily extends to any function used in an outer product, no matter how long. But Iverson notation would have you write it in the lower half of the line, which would quickly start to look bad.

I've long been fascinated by this question, probably spurred on by having read Hermann Hesse's _The Glass Bead Game_ (originally published as _Magister Ludi_) when I was impressionably young.

The problem of course is: ``What does an algorithm look like?''

Depicting one usually directs one into flowchart territory, and interestingly efforts at that style of programming often strive for simplicity, e.g., the straight-down preference from Raptor or Drakon --- systems which do not implement that often become a visual metaphor for ``spaghetti code'':

https://blueprintsfromhell.tumblr.com/

https://scriptsofanotherdimension.tumblr.com/

As a person who uses: https://www.blockscad3d.com/editor/ and https://github.com/derkork/openscad-graph-editor a fair bit, and needs to get Ryven up-and-running again (or to fix the OpenSCAD layer in his current project or try https://www.nodebox.net/ again), this is something I'd really like to see someone be successful with, but the most successful exemplar would be Scratch, which I've never seen described as innovatively expressive --- I'd love to see such a tool which could make a traditional graphical application.

All those things can be specified in text. Fortress was a language that had the facility to use mathematical notation. Turned out to be not so compelling iirc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_(programming_language...

We might also consider letting the language semantics invade the editor. Hazel integrates its parser into the text editor, so rather than getting a red squiggly when you break a rule you're just unable to break the rules. It represents code you haven't yet written as a "typed hole" so instead of

1 +

The + would cause the following to appear

    1 + <int>

where <int> is the typed hole, reminding you to put an expression there which is an integer. It's perhaps a smaller leap than using shapes and space, but it's one I'd like to feel out a bit sometime.

We do have syntax highlighting these days. And our editors work like hypertext, where I can go to definitions, find usages, get inheritance hierarchies etc. Quite a ways from your suggestion, but also a few steps removed from a type writer.

I think any such leap would have to be a really big one to catch on though, due to inertia. Colorforth is not exactly popular, and I can't think of any other examples.

With LLMs you can write your code by hand drawing a diagram on a touch screen.

This has been possible since Sketchpad in 1963.

Yes, but there don't seem to be any current implementations which are more than academic exercises (I'd love to be wrong about that and be pointed to something which I could try).

The reason for this is that we've been trying to draw code by hand since 1963 and it doesn't really work out well except in limited domains. Maybe it'll work better with LLMs tho, I guess we'll see.

Not sure what an LLM brings to the table here.

I've been trying to learn traditional CAD, and found this observation enticing:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31471109

>Parametric CAD, in my view, is a perfect example of "visual programming", you have variables, iteration/patterning reducing repetition, composability of objects/sketches again reducing repetition, modularity of design though a hierarchy of assemblies. The alignment between programming principles and CAD modelling principles, while not immediately obvious, are very much there. An elegantly designed CAD model is just as beautiful (in its construction) as elegantly written code.

Obviously, it is fitting that a visual product is amenable to a visual approach/solution, so my question is, what programming environment for general purpose is most like to a parametric CAD system?

Yeah I think CAD is a perfect domain for this kind of thing, and IIRC that was one of the original target applications for Sketchpad, where Sutherland demonstrated constraint-based bridge design where the constraints were sketched in.

I agree I don't think LLMs really change the equation much.

For another look at where drawing-based programming has gone, see Dynamicland by Bret Victor. No LLMs required.

Can sketchpad do this? (relatively simple, but showing what an LLM can do with a sketch with very little prompting, full transcript of further typing included)

https://jmalicki.github.io/sp500-chart/

We've had paper and pencil permitting unfettered symbolic representations for centuries. The reason we settled on text is not some accidental bottleneck caused by typewriters.

We settled on dense and terse modes of symbolic reasoning and typewriters and computers just reflect that.

The dream of unleashing cognition by breaking free of these constraints is backwards. The friction and the constraints are why and how we can do things, not what impedes us doing things. If we were all floating on high dimensional frictionless spaces we would be able to represent anything and do nothing.

We already did, it's natural language. Talk to your computer and get code, aka vibe coding.

So humans just have a mouth and that's it? Language is the be-all-end-all of how humans can interact with the world and express themselves?

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