NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #30/NN_1992_30.iso/spool/comp/object/4589

Text File | 1992-12-20 | 1.8 KB | 38 lines

Newsgroups: comp.object
Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!umn.edu!csus.edu!netcom.com!objsys
From: Bob Hathaway <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Visual programming
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (Object Systems)
Organization: Object Systems
References: <[e-mail]>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 02:28:32 GMT
Lines: 26

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jack Shirazi <[e-mail]>) writes:
>I've seen a couple of visual programming environments, and used one
>that was implemented using Smalltalk, and I notice that they are
>really dataflow programs. Does anyone have any ideas about a way of
>visual programming which allows you to create and use objects
>interacting with each other.  I realize that the Smalltalk
>implementation has interacting objects uderlying it, but at the visual
>level you have data comming in, processed through some functions and
>output.  I know the question here is unclear, but I'm having trouble
>thinking up a visual program which is not a dataflow diagram.

For me, this is an issue with prototyping and perhaps dynamic compilation
in the OO domain.  You can create classes, use dynamic inheritance with
objects from a palette of (new) classes and etc.  From my point of view,
just make objects and classes (and subsystems, and etc.) the primitives
in a GUI and you're set.  This is a higher level of granularity than the
dynamic models I think you're discussing, but its the level I usually
prefer to think of for "visual programming".

Even some formal OO design notations (such as Booch and Rumbaugh(et al))
could be used as a visual programming environment; I think, with a little
code integration and dynamic compilation.  I'm surprised they don't have
anything for it already...

bob
[e-mail]