Graham Klyne writes:
This looks like much fun. I took a quick look at the screenshots, but don't see any provision for graphical display of *programs* -- is there?
At present, there isn't. But plans are to incorporate a graphical style of programming, much along the lines of the Dami and Vallet paper on "Higher-order functional composition in visual form" http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/dami96higherorder.html
I've sometimes thought that a functional language would be the ideal platform to usher in a purely graphical style of programming; there have been a few attempts over the years to do purely graphical programming, but they seem to founder somewhat on impedance mismatch between static visual presentation and dynamic behaviour of an imperative program, and I could see referential transparency eliminating some of these difficulties.
I agree. A graphical programming style is essentially a declarative one, and so needs to be coupled with a purely declarative programming language -- and of course a functional programming language is ideal for this.
Also, one could very easily imagine a graphical representation of a "point free" style of programming, with its emphasis on combination of functions. The Lego Mindstorms system is representative of the kind of environment where I think graphical and functional styles could merge very neatly.
I think many potential uses of functional programming languages, who might find the functional composition dot operator a bit foreign, do indeed feel perfectly at home linking chains of function-boxes together. Graphical programming has a lot going for it. Keith Hanna