Visual programming
Posted
October 17, 2008 
Comments(2)
Comments(2)
I’m not a fan of either WYSIWYG editors or visual GUI development environments such as visual basic. In both cases there is a danger of narcissism where the developer is overly concerned with the interface they interact with at the expense of the interface they are creating for somebody else. From my experience this usually means that the next person to interact with the code suffers – whether that is another programmer or a user.
Perhaps for some people a visual development environment does not get in the way in the manner I describe. For my own part though, I still spend most of my development time switching only between a text editor and the actual UI that I’m creating.
You’re certainly not alone, most developers I know would agree with this.
However, I tend to believe this has more to do with the quality of the products that have been on offer thus far. I don’t think software such as VB is a fair representation of the concept of WYSIWYG. Which is a shame since the concept does make quite a bit of sense; if you’ve creating a visual interface why not create it directly, rather than indirectly (which is what we do when we manipulate code that in turn manipulates the GUI).
Another factor is that there is a lot more to creating software, or web apps for that matter, than just the GUI. The middleware or back-end is definitely best done in code, rather than visually. So may be the way forward is better separation of interface from the code. Maybe the Expression & Visual Studio collaboration is the answer, as the UXB keeps telling us :)
Visual programming could then be something that makes sense, without compromising the coding that goes on behind it. Just a thought.
I agree that directly creating the GUI makes sense. For me the closest thing to this is currently in code due largely, as you mention, to the tools that are currently on offer. Usually with these tools I feel like I’m manipulating the enviroment I’m in instead of the environment I’m creating.