>Possibly because while we have a rich ecosystem of tools for dealing with text in myriad form and ways, and have conditioned ourselves over the years on how to read text in a general form, I don't think the same can be said for more graphical representations of programs.
Yes, I completely agree.
To go off on a bit of a tangent, I wonder if it's just a matter of the right technology and implementation? Is there an analog to the rise of touch interfaces waiting to happen in the way we record, manipulate and relay information?
>While a representation that uses graphical cues in lieu of textual ones may be easier to learn and understand initially, the disadvantage of not being able to use the thousands of utilities for searching, refactoring examining code are then less useful, if not entirely useless.
That's a good point. I was thinking of this purely from the standpoint of creating as an individual, not maintaining or sharing.
>P.S. In a way, idiomatic structure to code puts a graphical representation on the textual form. Programmers learn to recognize this. Python goes as far as to enforce it.
Certainly, learning that word (idiomatic) was a boon to my understanding of code.
Yes, I completely agree.
To go off on a bit of a tangent, I wonder if it's just a matter of the right technology and implementation? Is there an analog to the rise of touch interfaces waiting to happen in the way we record, manipulate and relay information?
>While a representation that uses graphical cues in lieu of textual ones may be easier to learn and understand initially, the disadvantage of not being able to use the thousands of utilities for searching, refactoring examining code are then less useful, if not entirely useless.
That's a good point. I was thinking of this purely from the standpoint of creating as an individual, not maintaining or sharing.
>P.S. In a way, idiomatic structure to code puts a graphical representation on the textual form. Programmers learn to recognize this. Python goes as far as to enforce it.
Certainly, learning that word (idiomatic) was a boon to my understanding of code.