Ask HN Computer Scientists: could my app make the world a better place?
38 comments
You're asking the wrong crowd. People who are quite familiar with text-based programming tools just won't get it. You'll get stupid questions like "what does this give me that X doesn't already?" rather than people seeing the potential there for visual programming.
As I understand it, the visual programming in LabView and MatLab work quite well. These, I believe, will be your primary points of comparison.
As I understand it, the visual programming in LabView and MatLab work quite well. These, I believe, will be your primary points of comparison.
As someone who is forced to do LabView programming to set up experiments in a class, I disagree. LabView is the most unproductive way to code ever. Doing an `if(x<y)` takes like 100 clicks. The reason LabView is acceptable is that it has a lot of libraries for interfacing with hardware, and libraries for displaying measurements (but if I right click on an array view then "copy data" it copies the number as an image (!) instead of the underlying array, WTF?).
I couldn't agree more. As a programmer, Labview is very frustrating. What takes me an hour to "setup" I could probably code in less than 15 minutes. And its damn slow. And its errors are impossible to troubleshoot.
The only reason why I would attempt to do something in Labview in the first place is because all the hardware manufacturers ship with LabView modules.
The only reason why I would attempt to do something in Labview in the first place is because all the hardware manufacturers ship with LabView modules.
You should look at things like Max/MSP and vvvv as well --- in the graphics/music domain, visual programming languages are often a much better fit.
A lot of people are pretty skeptical about visual programming, because it's been tried often, and it seems like text is a natural way to express complicated programs; easy to see a lot at once, easy to create quickly with the keyboard, simple to share, simple to search, and easy to make changes in multiple places with things like regular expressions.
What do you think your visual environment has to offer over a textual language without a lot of cruft and with relatively "simple" syntax?
What do you think your visual environment has to offer over a textual language without a lot of cruft and with relatively "simple" syntax?
WizBang is designed to teach the most basic programming fundamentals: loops, conditional branches, numeric operations, and how these blocks interact with eachother.
I am in no way trying to get any current developer to switch over to building programs in WizBang. This was never an intention. The goal is to present a simple, minimal, visual environment in which to build simple programs.
After the beginner learns the basics, WizBang eases them into the next step of learning a real language, such as C++, Java, or Python, by allowing them to compile their WizBang programs into valid code in any language that's supported.
To answer your final question: the only advantage WizBang has over a textual language is that I think there are more grade school (and even high school) students that would experiment building programs with colorful shapes than typing commands into a text editor, then running a compiler or interpreter to see what they get.
I am in no way trying to get any current developer to switch over to building programs in WizBang. This was never an intention. The goal is to present a simple, minimal, visual environment in which to build simple programs.
After the beginner learns the basics, WizBang eases them into the next step of learning a real language, such as C++, Java, or Python, by allowing them to compile their WizBang programs into valid code in any language that's supported.
To answer your final question: the only advantage WizBang has over a textual language is that I think there are more grade school (and even high school) students that would experiment building programs with colorful shapes than typing commands into a text editor, then running a compiler or interpreter to see what they get.
Visual programming is probably more appropriate for teaching.
See this system I've built for teaching binary search tree algorithms. You can use it to teach not just basic binary search tree algorithms but also AVL and red-black tree algorithms.
http://opsis.sourceforge.net
See this system I've built for teaching binary search tree algorithms. You can use it to teach not just basic binary search tree algorithms but also AVL and red-black tree algorithms.
http://opsis.sourceforge.net
I like this approach (especially the idea that users can see the generated code and start to understand how they might write it themselves). I think you'll learn more by trying it out on non-programmers or beginning programmers and watching how they use it. Most of us here on HN probably can't evaluate it from the right point of view.
You might want to compare http://scratch.mit.edu/ for some UI inspiration.
You might want to compare http://scratch.mit.edu/ for some UI inspiration.
Scratch is a neat system. But I found it to be slower than just typing code. I know that's not the point, but my thinking is that doing something graphically with lego blocks should be faster than typing out all the characters one at a time.
I've worked a bit with graphical dataflow systems (like LabView) that can actually realize a much quicker time to operation than hashing out equivalent code by hand.
I've worked a bit with graphical dataflow systems (like LabView) that can actually realize a much quicker time to operation than hashing out equivalent code by hand.
It is much slower for me to build a WizBang program than to fire up vim and write some code. I'm not sure if visual programming could ever be faster than a text editor, as a visual block (in WizBang anyway) usually corresponds to one or two lines of actual code.
But speed is not the point at all in WizBang. The point is to present a clean and simple environment in which beginners can build real programs without having to type more than variable names. I feel it is a much easier way to introduce programming than having someone install Visual Studio and writing a hello world program.
But speed is not the point at all in WizBang. The point is to present a clean and simple environment in which beginners can build real programs without having to type more than variable names. I feel it is a much easier way to introduce programming than having someone install Visual Studio and writing a hello world program.
This is definitely a cool project. I think, introduced the right way it would certainly work along your intended concept.
There have been a few attempts at pushing the complexity down so that non-programmers can work with complex things. Like Data Flow programming systems for example.
Showing somebody how to build a simple data processing app in one of these systems is very rewarding as they realize they can coax the machine to do what they are telling it. But I've mostly dealt with adults, not kids.
There have been a few attempts at pushing the complexity down so that non-programmers can work with complex things. Like Data Flow programming systems for example.
Showing somebody how to build a simple data processing app in one of these systems is very rewarding as they realize they can coax the machine to do what they are telling it. But I've mostly dealt with adults, not kids.
Thanks for the feedback. We looked at scratch and Alice and a few other programs to get ideas about visual programming before we started building WizBang. I have done a few tests with people with no programming experience, but just wanted to let HN know about the project since I've seen lots of posts about "how do I teach programming to someone young?" and I think this is a great tool for that.
I think this is an interesting approach. You are visually modelling program FLOW - something that is hard to visualize by just looking at text.
I went to Virginia Tech and since the CS department was sucked into the rest of engineering - I ended up taking intro engineering courses (read: a complete waste of time) and they wanted to teach programming to freshman engineers through Alice.
Alice, although the early versions crashed, ran slow, and often saved the XML 'world' files incorrectly, corrupting your work and making you lose it - it did a great job of teaching visual programming because you could easily create a 3D scene or game without much effort, plus it highlighted the code as it ran.
While Wizbang is visual as well (albeit in a different way), the program flow diagrams kind of look like UML diagrams and could STILL scare away novice programmers.
A main issue of teaching programming to new comers is you need to start with the basics - but printing "hello world" to the screen doesn't seem applicable so it feels like they are wasting their time. Besides, most of what they use computers for is pretty and visual.
Wizbang doesn't seem to offer anything else that other learning tools don't do in a better way - except maybe the export to a "real" language.
Now imagine if you could combine that exporting functionality on top of something more visually interesting like Alice. Make a 'game' in Wizlice (Wizbang-Alice), and then export that code (on top of your minimal graphics libraries or functions to support what they write) to C++/Java and let them tinker around with THAT... they'll be on HN in a couple of years tops.
Cool idea, polished effort, please expand visual component!
I went to Virginia Tech and since the CS department was sucked into the rest of engineering - I ended up taking intro engineering courses (read: a complete waste of time) and they wanted to teach programming to freshman engineers through Alice.
Alice, although the early versions crashed, ran slow, and often saved the XML 'world' files incorrectly, corrupting your work and making you lose it - it did a great job of teaching visual programming because you could easily create a 3D scene or game without much effort, plus it highlighted the code as it ran.
While Wizbang is visual as well (albeit in a different way), the program flow diagrams kind of look like UML diagrams and could STILL scare away novice programmers.
A main issue of teaching programming to new comers is you need to start with the basics - but printing "hello world" to the screen doesn't seem applicable so it feels like they are wasting their time. Besides, most of what they use computers for is pretty and visual.
Wizbang doesn't seem to offer anything else that other learning tools don't do in a better way - except maybe the export to a "real" language.
Now imagine if you could combine that exporting functionality on top of something more visually interesting like Alice. Make a 'game' in Wizlice (Wizbang-Alice), and then export that code (on top of your minimal graphics libraries or functions to support what they write) to C++/Java and let them tinker around with THAT... they'll be on HN in a couple of years tops.
Cool idea, polished effort, please expand visual component!
You are visually modelling program FLOW - something that is hard to visualize by just looking at text.
Visualizing the exchange of messages in object systems is just as hard. I think that that is a big impediment to teaching OO. Perhaps that's a bit more advanced than what this project is after.
Visualizing the exchange of messages in object systems is just as hard. I think that that is a big impediment to teaching OO. Perhaps that's a bit more advanced than what this project is after.
I'm no computer scientist, hope I can comment anyway...
Maybe add some graphics capability a la Logo? That way, you can see the turtle and the program going at the same time.
Also, some kind of labelling/commenting of the different "areas" of the program -- that can then be translated to comments to the code.
Maybe add some graphics capability a la Logo? That way, you can see the turtle and the program going at the same time.
Also, some kind of labelling/commenting of the different "areas" of the program -- that can then be translated to comments to the code.
Thanks for the suggestions. A comment system is on my list of features to work on.
I think I have been fleshing out an idea like what you are suggesting from the turtle cursor. I would like to add a step-by-step debugging to WizBang that allows the user to watch variable values and step through each Wizzy (with it being highlighted graphically). If I implemented that, I think it would be a great way to visualize different sorting algorithms.
Edit: I'm also not quite a computer scientist! College drop out! :)
I think I have been fleshing out an idea like what you are suggesting from the turtle cursor. I would like to add a step-by-step debugging to WizBang that allows the user to watch variable values and step through each Wizzy (with it being highlighted graphically). If I implemented that, I think it would be a great way to visualize different sorting algorithms.
Edit: I'm also not quite a computer scientist! College drop out! :)
My feedback is metafeedback: This is not even remotely a new idea. If you can't immediately rattle off the names of three similar systems, well... consider that a sign of how successful this approach has proved in the past.
If you are serious about this, you should dig up those previous systems, and see if you can come up with a reason why your system will fare better. I will concede I am pessimistic that such a property can exist, but who knows if I am correct? But if you really want this to succeed by any measure, you really really ought to do this.
Or decide you totally don't care about success, by any measure you choose, in which case, have fun. But I can't in good conscience just blindly encourage someone when taking on a visual programming language. It's like happily encouraging someone to go ahead, leap off the diving board into the pit of spikes, no problem, everything will be fine. We're taught by our culture to blindly encourage everybody, no matter what, but such encouragement has consequences. We shouldn't ignore those consequences.
If I had to pick the most likely angle of attack for such a system to stand out from the crowd and potentially enable some sort of interaction that might help you escape from what appears to be a total black hole of effort, it would be the input device. The mouse and keyboard have been explored on this front. Perhaps a stylus-based system could do something different and new, or something. (Touch will probably be too imprecise, it virtually drops your resolution and you're going to need more precision, not less.)
If you are serious about this, you should dig up those previous systems, and see if you can come up with a reason why your system will fare better. I will concede I am pessimistic that such a property can exist, but who knows if I am correct? But if you really want this to succeed by any measure, you really really ought to do this.
Or decide you totally don't care about success, by any measure you choose, in which case, have fun. But I can't in good conscience just blindly encourage someone when taking on a visual programming language. It's like happily encouraging someone to go ahead, leap off the diving board into the pit of spikes, no problem, everything will be fine. We're taught by our culture to blindly encourage everybody, no matter what, but such encouragement has consequences. We shouldn't ignore those consequences.
If I had to pick the most likely angle of attack for such a system to stand out from the crowd and potentially enable some sort of interaction that might help you escape from what appears to be a total black hole of effort, it would be the input device. The mouse and keyboard have been explored on this front. Perhaps a stylus-based system could do something different and new, or something. (Touch will probably be too imprecise, it virtually drops your resolution and you're going to need more precision, not less.)
The introduction programming courses (for non majors) use Alice and I think that without having a strong professor to tie the visual to real programming together, the connection is lost on students.
For example, my girlfriend took the intro course and did pretty well but they moved on to real Java and object oriented programming she felt like she had wasted 1/4th of the semester on the visual programming aspect, and would have much rather just learned the normal way.
I think a better way to approach this is to design labs that are both easy, educational, and satisfying to the student. This isn't that hard to do with the numerous graphical libraries that simplify programming for the student.
For example, my girlfriend took the intro course and did pretty well but they moved on to real Java and object oriented programming she felt like she had wasted 1/4th of the semester on the visual programming aspect, and would have much rather just learned the normal way.
I think a better way to approach this is to design labs that are both easy, educational, and satisfying to the student. This isn't that hard to do with the numerous graphical libraries that simplify programming for the student.
I think this is a hard problem - a good tool for beginners would need to be amazing to get any uptake.
The visual programming idioms that Ive noticed having some impact are things like dragging connection points to wire up inputs/outputs or behavior/function calls.
If you look at modern visual GUI design tools such as apple/xcode Interface Builder, wiring components seems to be something that beginner users could understand easily. [Have a look at recent demos from 280 Norths Atlas to see this taken to the web]
Maybe you could work with a school computer hobbies class as an ongoing project to see how they learn in practice - perhaps offer it as a visual logic puzzle?
The visual programming idioms that Ive noticed having some impact are things like dragging connection points to wire up inputs/outputs or behavior/function calls.
If you look at modern visual GUI design tools such as apple/xcode Interface Builder, wiring components seems to be something that beginner users could understand easily. [Have a look at recent demos from 280 Norths Atlas to see this taken to the web]
Maybe you could work with a school computer hobbies class as an ongoing project to see how they learn in practice - perhaps offer it as a visual logic puzzle?
I can't seem to find my copy of the 2009 Scheme Workshop proceedings, but Shriram Krishnamurthi's crew presented some work there that was pretty impressive. They are oriented toward teaching programming to 7-8th graders, before they learn algebra.
They use PLT scheme as the core of their system, but decided to implement it in JS to eliminate difficulties young kids would have installing software, and to simplify sharing of programs for bragging rights (for kids, of course - no adult programmers care about such things).
They use PLT scheme as the core of their system, but decided to implement it in JS to eliminate difficulties young kids would have installing software, and to simplify sharing of programs for bragging rights (for kids, of course - no adult programmers care about such things).
I like the idea, definitely the sort of thing you want to get used by school-age students not 'proper' computer scientists though. Recently was reminded of just how damn easy it was to do the most basic of programming in the BBC Micro era; no real syntax, no complexity, but in 10 seconds you could write something that printed 'JOE ROCKS' infinitely on the page. If this has the same level of just-do-it, and sufficient sample starting points, it could be really cool.
I just wanted to know if any actual computer scientists had input on the project's goals. I have looked into Alice, scratch, Popfly (discontinued), and couldn't really find one that was very similar to WizBang, so I was also thinking putting it on HN would dig out any project that was amazingly similar.
Edit: scratch, not squeak
Edit: scratch, not squeak
I'm an actual computer scientist FWIW ;)
Seems like an interesting project to teach complete beginners. I'll test it out to see if it can help my girlfriend understand more about programing...
Great! There isn't much instruction on what to do once it's installed, so I recommend opening up the examples (available from the sourceforge files page) to get an idea how the blocks behave.
Yes. Absolutely. For everything from education to autobuilding software tests.
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Which, I hope, will allow more students to get excited about programming, instead of being scared away by compiler errors.
I applaud you for your concern and effort, but I wonder about the unintended consequences of this. Do you really want to encourage someone who would be "scared away by compiler errors"? Compiling is easy, deploying is much harder.
If someone is scared away by the easy stuff, how will they respond to the real difficulties that await?
Maybe I'm a little old fashioned, but I think the battle scars earned conquering the little things like syntax help build a better programmer for everything else. I wouldn't want to take that building block away.
I applaud you for your concern and effort, but I wonder about the unintended consequences of this. Do you really want to encourage someone who would be "scared away by compiler errors"? Compiling is easy, deploying is much harder.
If someone is scared away by the easy stuff, how will they respond to the real difficulties that await?
Maybe I'm a little old fashioned, but I think the battle scars earned conquering the little things like syntax help build a better programmer for everything else. I wouldn't want to take that building block away.
I don't think WizBang could ever take away the beginner running into compiler errors, but I feel that the beginner programmer has so many problems to face at once that this situation can be improved. By using WizBang, they can interactively learn about looping and branches without worrying about syntax.
I taught Computer Science 101 in grad school. I think this has a lot of potential.
I wonder if syntax errors could be made friendlier by animating them as visual pieces that don't fit together or that do not stick? I can imagine an editor that always keeps the text syntactically correct (by adding in closing brackets, boilerplate text to be typed over, etc). A visual editor that behaved in the same way would be very useful. Especially if the program code would dynamically update in a parallel window!
I think that people can relate to some widget or puzzle piece fitting or not fitting onto another widget or piece. Certainly, one can relate to this more readily than cryptic messages like "syntax error."
I wonder if syntax errors could be made friendlier by animating them as visual pieces that don't fit together or that do not stick? I can imagine an editor that always keeps the text syntactically correct (by adding in closing brackets, boilerplate text to be typed over, etc). A visual editor that behaved in the same way would be very useful. Especially if the program code would dynamically update in a parallel window!
I think that people can relate to some widget or puzzle piece fitting or not fitting onto another widget or piece. Certainly, one can relate to this more readily than cryptic messages like "syntax error."
I taught Computer Science 101 in grad school. I think this has a lot of potential.
Well, that remark certainly devaluated my opinion of grad schools. I understand not everyone is fit for SICP at 18 (I certainly wasn't), but this is quite on the opposite end.
Well, that remark certainly devaluated my opinion of grad schools. I understand not everyone is fit for SICP at 18 (I certainly wasn't), but this is quite on the opposite end.
I was teaching undergrads as a graduate student TA.
Ah, of course. Sorry, somehow I misunderstood what you wrote.
Do not assume that "scared away by compiler errors" means the same thing as stupid or not intellectually curious.
I know at least one would-be programmer who is not scared away by complier errors, but he is almost comically infuriated by them: not their presence, but their customary vagueness and unhelpfulness. Such a tool as this might provide an intellectually curious sort like him to learn proper syntax for common programming concepts without having to dig through man pages or web pages, and without lots of trial and error.
I know at least one would-be programmer who is not scared away by complier errors, but he is almost comically infuriated by them: not their presence, but their customary vagueness and unhelpfulness. Such a tool as this might provide an intellectually curious sort like him to learn proper syntax for common programming concepts without having to dig through man pages or web pages, and without lots of trial and error.
since your comments in this thread indicate that you are insistent this is for beginners, maybe you should go ask beginners.
get out of my building...http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=869827
get out of my building...http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=869827
It is definitely intended for beginners, but I wanted to let HN know about it since I've seen a lot of posts wondering "how I can teach my kid to program?" and think that this is a good app for that.
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Despite all the downmodding, jpwagner's suggestion is on the money. What would most benefit the development of a tool like this is extensive understanding of how the target audience reacts to and applies it.
Lest we forget that COBOL and SQL were originally designed to be accessible to non-developer business-y types. One wonders how much UX testing they underwent.
Lest we forget that COBOL and SQL were originally designed to be accessible to non-developer business-y types. One wonders how much UX testing they underwent.
I've been building an app that started as a college project. Its purpose is to let people build programs visually and learn programming without worrying about missing a semi-colon.
The program supports loops, conditional branches, number operations (add, subtract, etc.), input and output. The programs can be run immediately from inside WizBang.
BUT, the #1 feature is that after a program is built and the user has verified that it behaves how they want, they can click one button and compile their program down to working and valid code in C++, Python, and Java.
This allows the user to learn programming in the opposite way that is usually taught in universities. In WizBang, the user learns programming behavior before language syntax. Which, I hope, will allow more students to get excited about programming, instead of being scared away by compiler errors.
Any feedback is appreciated!