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Comment by keyle | Hacker News Reader

How about a gesture based programming language that translates to a visual one on screen? Is it so far fetched?

I've been typing programs for so many years I think we've gone as far as we could go with text, auto complete, live compilers, hot reload etc.

It wouldn't be that uncomfortable seeing a developer spends most of time reading / analysing and, god forbid, the open office would allow it (!@#$%^ noise): THINKING.

Here is a thought, want to make the future of programming languages? Remove distractions.

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How would you "name variables" or "refer to code blocks" without typing?

How will you search for specific things in a codebase (where did I assign this variable again?) without text?

Have you ever tried running "diff" on "graphical/flowchart" code?

An angry programmer could find a gesture or two to name the most hated variables...

Diff tools might actually be able to work better on graphical/flowchart code.

It could theoretically be easier for the tools to identify exactly what changed and present that information rather than superfluous stuff like whitespace changes.

My questions are based on actual experience using a "graphical" language [1]... I am not using it anymore, but the "theoretical" advantages you mention never actually became real for me (or my former colleagues still using it, either).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebMethods_Flow

I don't doubt that existing graphical languages have very poor tooling.

I believe that diff tools could be better if they operate on some format that represents the meaning of the code, not the details of how it's written. New tools would have to be written, so it's largely a matter of pragmatism and momentum that prevents such a thing.

FYI I googled "WebMethods Flow merge tools" and one of the more useful discussions actually featured you from 3 years ago expressing similar sentiment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12106945

I am old so I tend to repeat myself a lot :)

Honestly - I would be happy to use a graphical (or any other alternative to traditional) language. I was reasonably enthusiastic when I started working with webMethods and some things I like a lot. But honestly I cannot say it scales well beyond simple transformations / mapping tasks.

With a unique gesture(?)

and yes the diffing on Blueprints is very good, again, in UE4.

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