The Larch Environment

http://www.larchenvironment.com/

by coherentpony • 12 years ago

91 62 12 years ago

Scaevolus• 12 years ago

Neat! This reminds me of "Usable Live Programming" by Sean McDirmid: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/smcdirm/liveprogr...

CoffeeDregs2• 12 years ago

This is the 3rd or 4th time I've seen a proposal for visual programming environments (e.g. see http://cs.brown.edu/~spr/codebubbles/*, LightTable, this one, probably others) and I'm not sure why they don't take off. On the one hand, they seem incredibly useful and I really like Code Bubbles' approach to automatically pulling in relevant code (http://cs.brown.edu/~spr/codebubbles/bubbles01.gif). On the other hand, none of the projects seems to have significant traction (though LightTable seems to be growing). Are existing environments good enough? Is there an impedance mismatch between existing languages and visual code-design/programming?

* I really thought CodeBubbles was clever and I'm sorry that it appears to be defunct...

mtrimpe5• 12 years ago

I think people are still underestimating the complexity and raw hard work involved in making these visuals scale.

I also think it's inevitable in the long run, but developing them properly still has similar complexity as building IDE plugins except now having the IDE replaced with a 'language plus some form of IDE.'

LightTable really seemed to be on the right track there, but from what I can tell it has fallen prey to the curse of Lisp with Chris seemingly moving on to an even more awesome language project instead of putting in the hard (and probably quite boring) work to get visual augmentation to the masses.

SeoxyS• 12 years ago

Can you elaborate as to what you think happened to LightTable? What is this "curse of Lisp" that you speak of?

dvanduzer2• 12 years ago

LightTable started from Clojure. Larch is based on Python.

Neither is based on Mathematica.

edit: What I mean is that iPython Notebooks are one of the few toolkits that are starting to take hold in academia in applications where Mathematica rules. Nobody in "serious number crunching academia" uses Clojure.

namuol3• 12 years ago

Have you tried Unreal Engine 4's Blueprint[1]?

It's probably the first visual programming that "made sense" to me. Its use is limited to UE4 games, of course, but I think its design would be suitable for more general use.

[1] https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/blueprint-basics

CoffeeDregs2• 12 years ago

Never seen it. Looks interesting, though very high level? I'll check out the youtube videos they mention: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZlv_N0_O1gaG5BW72It4c...

adamnemecek• 12 years ago

Looks a bit like Quartz Composer although I've never actually used it.

lispm4• 12 years ago

I don't think Lighttalble is a visual programming environment. Last I looked it just had some visual enhancements, but the code is plain old text in files.

mtrimpe5• 12 years ago

It's meant to be. It has the infrastructure to be. It just doesn't have the documentation and ecosystem to show how.

lkrubner3• 12 years ago

The one that really worked was HyperCard. Though it is now forgotten, it had a large following back in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was also used to teach programming to children in some elite private schools (maybe it also made it into the public schools?). Danny Goodman wrote a book about it that some of us remember fondly; it was as good an introduction to basic programming as anything ever written.

HyperCard had most of the features that Chris Granger talks about when he talks about LightTable. In HyperCard, you can see all the variables as they updated, as your program ran. There was no real compile step, you could hit "Run" and watch you variables change as the program ran.

You can read more about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperCard

Apple eventually abandoned HyperCard, as perhaps it became obsolete in the era of the Internet. I believe we will again have something like HyperCard, in the future, but not while we still have the document model imposed on us by HTML. The Internet will need a new protocol for apps, rather than documents. When that day comes, I suspect we will see something like HyperCard return. People like Chris Granger are already doing very cool stuff with Javascript and LightTable, but they are forced to work within the document paradigm (with a hierarchical DOM) which is not a good fit for applications.

bithive123• 12 years ago

I have very fond memories of using HyperCard in a public elementary school in the early 90s (mostly to create cartoon violence).

seanmcdirmid8• 12 years ago

HyperCard supported run forward but not back. It had no concept of time manipulation as shown in Bret victor's videos.

captainmuon• 12 years ago

The Internet will need a new protocol for apps, rather than documents.

A bit off-topic (sorry), but that's a good point. I believe it would be great for a future version of HTML to have two 'profiles', one for documents and one for apps. The document metaphor is great for, well, plain documents, but it is problematic for apps, like Gmail. For example it can be annoying if you have JS-heavy sites which break document-related features (navigation, resizing, printing, copying).

Have a document profile where you have all the markup features, but the javascript features are possibly restricted. This corresponds to a lean version of HTML5. You know HTML6-doc pages will look reasonable and load quickly on all devices, including on ebooks and printed out.

Then have a app profile where you don't even need a document - you can just draw on canvasses if you want, but you can also create HTML elements. I imagine that people write GUI libraries for it. You have access to all fancy modern JS features, like sockets, webcam, etc.. This would be the time to change the wierd security model of HTML - a page with the DOCTYPE HTML6-app would opt into a new model, where pages don't have access to all credentials and cookies by default, so it is reasonably safe to give them net access (they can't buy stuff if you are logged into amazon in another tab, for example).

The best thing is, we can start using these new paradigms today - and maybe have nice little badges to show we are following the new "best practice" :-). Restict yourself to minimal, presentational, progressive-enhancement JS for documents, use semantic markup, check that it looks good on all devices etc.. And when you are doing a (single-page) app, it doesn't have to look like a document, but heed all the advice for non-web desktop or mobile apps - and make sure your app doesn't break navigation.

rm445• 12 years ago

There are SOME successful visual programming environments, though not in the mainstream programs-for-PCs-and-servers arena.

Firstly, simulation of dynamic systems in systems such as Simulink (Matlab) and Xcos.

Secondly, PLCs are frequently programmed via ladder diagrams (though I'm not sure of what tools are used to translate between the ladder logic and the machine code).

What these have in common is that there's a fairly simple mental mapping between the desired behaviour and the feedback loops involved, and the inputs and outputs are quite simple (though the emergent behaviour of the system may be quite complex). What this suggests, though I can't prove it, is that visual programming is attractive for simple layouts but becomes unattractive as systems become more complex and there's more possibility for coupling in the system to produce a visual mess.

vibrolax• 12 years ago

National Instruments' Labview environment also fits in this category. To me it feels like an analog of an electronic schematic diagram editor. I find that it turns into a visual mess as the system becomes complex. To counteract this, one has to spend a lot of time and effort revising the visual elements, and this is not time spent solving the problem better. Of course, many of us spend a lot of time revising our text-form code for clarity and ease of maintenance.

d135_1r43• 12 years ago

Visual programming is very established in contemporary music. Max/MSP and SuperCollider are state of the art, with dozens of papers written on it. I do not get why those languages are not used outside a very litte academic hipster music community.

troymc• 12 years ago

It's not my area, but it's my understanding that the same is true in digital compositing, with software like NUKE and Adobe After Effects

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_compositing

tizzdogg2• 12 years ago

Likewise most 3d graphics software like Maya, Houdini, softimage ICE etc. These types of node-based interfaces tend to arise in applications which need high interactivity and have a fairly specific domain. They usually don't scale well to more general programming. For example, they are great for representing the flow of data through a network of functions but not so great at showing things like loops or recursion. That said, I do think graphics (and music) apps are at the forefront of "visual programming" but they are often not talked about in the context of programming language research. Language designers should be looking to them for inspiration.

javajosh• 12 years ago

Confession: I watched with interest until he added the reset button. At this point, he silently starts making classic textual changes. A non-obvious but quite bad thing is that it required simultaneous multiple edits in disparate parts of the file - each of which required expert knowledge of the libraries, the language, and the file itself. This is why visual programming environments suck - because in the end, you still have to know exactly what to do, and you have to do it simultaneously, without feedback. These kinds of things will continue to fail until you can add a reset button incrementally and visually.

vegggdor4• 12 years ago

Instead of text editing, sliders and knobs to manipulate values work well. Music lends itself well to graphic interfaces, because of it's sequential nature, you don't usually work with text or conditionals. Especially for the _feedback_ anything visual works a treat though.

With expert systems you work blind half the time, because of the size, that you can't get all into scope. So you simplify and make abstractions, but it's complicated to map multidimensional decision space onto 2d. Therefore a good visual programming environment would have to be a complicated system, that, well, you'd have to learn to navigate and memorize.

Don't know what you mean, how to _incrementally_ add or reset a button, like Undo/Redo?

arloft• 12 years ago

First reply, be gentle. I think the problem you're describing is one that results when an expert tries to teach / design something to beginners and they forget how to present the information in an approachable manner. Sure, with code it _seems_ like "duh of course you need to _know_ the libraries to use a visual editor!" but that goes against the basic concept of having a visual styled IDE.

I'm a UX / visual design guy very interested in learning to program, have been for several years. But it's just not approachable beyond stuff like CodeAcademy, as it quickly becomes a labyrinth of documentation, cryptic instructions, and unclear ways to approach building a worthwhile program.

I digress, as that's not my point. Point is, many visual editors, even Quartz Composer, fail on the same area; they aren't approachable beyond tinkering with the switches and buttons. UX isn't even a passing thought on these tools. I would love to participate in building one of these tools and learning X language in the process. Until a visual designer is involved, these tools will continue being relegated to tiny niches unless a visionary developer comes along (-and actually completes the thing, as was mentioned above about the LightTable Chris guy).

I'm not saying design is _the_ answer, but all the best tools have been co-created with a visual/ mechanical/ industrial/ designer of some kind.

seanmcdirmid8• 12 years ago

My wife is a visual designer (on feature phones, weirdly enough), she isn't very helpful with my own programming experiments [1] :)

Actually, we need a visual designer who is also versed in programmer experience (rather than end-user experience) design, and I haven't found anybody like that yet. A UX designer is not some magical person who can magically do design in any domain; even HCI researchers are not a panacea [2]. Also, designs, even by seasoned designers well versed in the domain they are working in, are never perfect, there are always trade offs to be made.

Nothing is ever finished, we only get closer to our goals that are infinitely away.

[1] http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/liveprogramming...

[2] http://faculty.washington.edu/ajko/talks/CHI2006Barista.pdf

mkremins2• 12 years ago

This is spot on. In programming communities, design is frequently dismissed as an "implementation detail" or part of "making it look good" (i.e. marketing). This is a distinct and recurring cultural blind spot – more conceptually interesting programming tools than I can count have been torpedoed by a lack of attention to visual/UI/UX/HCI design.

Design is absolutely critical when it comes to helping people understand complex systems. Well-designed tools work with the human brain to mitigate cognitive load, allowing the user to focus on making stuff happen rather than on juggling handfuls of information. Few programming tools, experimental or mainstream, fit this description; even fewer have anything like it in mind.

Successful efforts to make programming less opaque and more accessible will necessarily involve massive leaps forward in design. I'm glad to see design beginning to make some inroads into programming culture, but we've got a long way to go yet considering how frequently the Unix CLI is still held up as the state of the art.

swartkrans• 12 years ago

Right, this is just regular code, drawn in boxes. This is not visual programming.

mcguire• 12 years ago

Other uses of the term 'Larch' include a formal specification system[1], and I could have sworn there was a '80s/'90s programming environment research project. (Perhaps a structured editor?)

[1] http://www.sds.lcs.mit.edu/spd/larch/

davidgay• 12 years ago

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wing/publications/Wing87.pdf

callmeed• 12 years ago

Can someone explain to me the difference between "visual programming" tools like this and environments that have existed for years such as VisualBasic, MS Access, Flash, Dreamweaver, and XCode Storyboards? (Yes, I know many are mainly about UI but they all allow programming to some degree).

Are tools like Larch and LightTable aiming to be "visual programming done right" or is this a completely new (buzzword warning) paradigm in programming?

seanmcdirmid8• 12 years ago

Visual programming is a broad term that has been used to describe programming with visual aspects. Lets not even discuss visual programming languages, like Quartz Composer.

vegggdor4• 12 years ago

Please, do go on!

hardwaresofton• 12 years ago

This reminds me of wolfram alpha's new programming language, except less confusing

RichardFord• 12 years ago

This is a step in the right direction. I'm always looking for new tools that help in understanding code bases and streamline workflows.

The inline table is cool. I like the idea of embedded documentation like that, as long as its structured in a way that can be turned on-off.

The Scala plugins for Intellij and Eclipse both have worksheets, which I think as of REPLs on steroids.

The one thing I'm still missing from most mainstream development environments though is interaction of live, running programs - the kind seen in Common Lisp and Smalltalk.

Java has it kindof, then enhanced more with JavaRebel (a commercial tool). .NET edit-n-continue is still frustratingly crippled in many ways.

I still feel like I'm programming in a batch environment instead of "molding" my code though.

math0ne• 12 years ago

Has some similarities to ipython notebooks... looks pretty interesting.

TheLarch2• 12 years ago

Well this is awkward.

TheLarch2• 12 years ago

I took the username from a Monty Python skit.

tizzdogg2• 12 years ago

And now, number 1. The larch. The larch. I appreciate the joke at least!

lispm4• 12 years ago

Compare with 'Boxer', originally developed on a Lisp Machine somewhen in the 80s.

http://www.mathedpage.org/t-and-m/turtle-and-mouse.html

http://web.media.mit.edu/~mres/papers/boxer.pdf

The Larch Environment

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