We're more geared towards programmers as you define what each node does in their code but you can choose to expose selected node parameters when exporting, for a designer/animator to potentially tweak.
Sorry about the advanced examples, some use WebGL and might have issues on iPad Safari that we'll need to check.
We tried to stay close to what you would write without it, using npm packages and all that comes with it.
TBH, spaghetti cables is kind of inherent to this kind of programming when scaling up but having code modules instead of just primitives is helpful indeed, letting you give the weight you want each node to have. We're also thinking about node groups as another level of abstraction to reduce visual cluttering.
Being coders ourselves we focused on a programmer-first approach indeed. The idea came naturally from a gap we identified in our day-to-day practice at Variable.io (data-art, installations, generative systems, ...). It enables some collaboration with designers (through exposing some parameters of the UI) but still focus on the coding experience to bring our projects to life.
Hi all, Damien here, one of Nodes creators. We tried to bring our own take in the visual programming space. We're still in beta and figuring out how people are using Nodes. Happy to answer any question you might have, AMA.
Sorry about the advanced examples, some use WebGL and might have issues on iPad Safari that we'll need to check.