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Imagine trying to do math without numbers. That's why visual mathematics sucks. Numbers are needed to count. We do it with our fingers when we're little, and we're limited to 10. Then we take off our socks to get to 20, but that's it.

Imagine trying to reason without words. That's why visual programming sucks. Words are the smallest units of abstraction that we can reason with. So when a visual programming language provides us with glyphs, we are already limited in our vocabulary and in what we can reason with. It becomes excruciating.

What we need is not a visual programming language, but more tools to visualize the programs that we have. Ultimately, all visuals need to fall back to literal code a parser can reason with, so there is no escaping code. In fact, there are already layers going down from the higher level languages that we use now. A practical graphical language would be one built on a higher level that adds a layer to the stack, and one which we can use or skip based on our problem at hand.

Also it is because graphics too easily limit abstractions that most graphical languages are best being domain specific. A WYSIWYG editor is for the web, the form designer in Delphi was for application layouts, and Scratch is for games.



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