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Visual programming [message #393773] Mon, 27 April 2020 12:17 Go to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: Gareth Evans

When you consider programming a loop in C, you have
in your mind a single concept but you have to press
a large number of keys to get just the boiler plate
for that construct, eg,

for (=,<>,++){}

... and mistyping will cause irritating errors, whereas
with visual programming one key press alone would give you
the boiler plate for the loop and a graphical blob to
represent it and no syntax errors.
Re: Visual programming [message #393776 is a reply to message #393773] Mon, 27 April 2020 12:51 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson

On 28/04/2020 12:17 am, Gareth Evans wrote:
> When you consider programming a loop in C, you have
> in your mind a single concept but you have to press
> a large number of keys to get just the boiler plate
> for that construct, eg,
>
> for (=,<>,++){}
>
> .. and mistyping will cause irritating errors, whereas
> with visual programming one key press alone would give you
> the boiler plate for the loop and a graphical blob to
> represent it and no syntax errors.

I've used editor templates for this purpose. A single function,
not necessarily a single keypress, will output something like

#include <stdio.h>

int main( int argc, char *argv[] )
{
_

return 0;
}

and the _ is used to mark where my cursor is at the end of the keypress.

The same can be done with for loops, while, do..while, whatnot.

You don't /need/ a visual language for this; if it helps, good.

What my editor lacks, or I have never figured out how to implement, is
something like

for ( _ ; _ ; _ )
{
_
}

where I can use a single key to jump between the various locations
marked with _.

***

Now you've got me confused, do you mean to write an editor, with
graphical functions for generating code, /or/ a totally visual
programming language? If you go for the latter, are you going for
flowcharts which nobody is using anymore? If you don't, are you
going for some intuitive[*] graphical syntax?


[*] Intuitive is not as intuitive as people think. In modern desktop
environments, there's usually an X that means /close this window/; this
X is not at all intuitive in any way, but people are used to it, and
learn quickly from one another, plus video demonstrations on Youtube and
the like.

--
Johann | email: invalid -> com | www.myrkraverk.com/blog/
I'm not from the Internet, I just work there. | twitter: @myrkraverk
Re: Visual programming [message #393777 is a reply to message #393776] Mon, 27 April 2020 13:41 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: Gareth Evans

On 27/04/2020 17:51, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson wrote:
>
> and the _ is used to mark where my cursor is at the end of the keypress.
> The same can be done with for loops, while, do..while, whatnot.
> You don't /need/ a visual language for this; if it helps, good.

.... and neither do you /need/ anything such as C, C++,
assembler or even hex machine code. You could do all your
programming in binary :-)

>
> Now you've got me confused, do you mean to write an editor, with
> graphical functions for generating code, /or/ a totally visual
> programming language?

The latter. But not sure that I _MEAN_ to do it, just toying
with ideas (If you can take a 35 year period as "toying" as I
come back to this train of thought from time to time because
of numerous other spare time interests, ham radio,
church bell ringing, model engineering, horology, jump judging
at equestrian events, ac yn dysgu Cymraeg).

But totally visual, yes, so that you'd never encounter another
underlying source language such as C. Now, to store any program
design there needs to be an unambiguous representation of the
source structure, and one unambiguous representation is the
running code itself.

>   If you go for the latter, are you going for
> flowcharts which nobody is using anymore?  If you don't, are you
> going for some intuitive[*] graphical syntax?

Let me answer your questions by another. When you see the
representations for Scratch on the screen, how does that
look different from flowcharts?

As to the suggestion that nobody uses flowcharts, this suggests
to me a very unprofessional approach of coding off the top of one's head
?????
Re: Visual programming [message #393798 is a reply to message #393777] Tue, 28 April 2020 10:58 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Jorgen Grahn is currently offline  Jorgen Grahn
Messages: 606
Registered: March 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
On Mon, 2020-04-27, Gareth Evans wrote:
> On 27/04/2020 17:51, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson wrote:
....
>>   If you go for the latter, are you going for
>> flowcharts which nobody is using anymore?  If you don't, are you
>> going for some intuitive[*] graphical syntax?
>
> Let me answer your questions by another. When you see the
> representations for Scratch on the screen, how does that
> look different from flowcharts?

I've used Scratch, and yes it looks like flowcharts. I found it
painful to work with and never really "got" it. But I'm very
text-oriented. I don't know how children (who can/cannot read)
feel about it.

Then there's LabView ... also a graphical programming language, and in
use in recent years. The original reason I learned Python was so I
could avoid LabView.

> As to the suggestion that nobody uses flowcharts, this suggests to
> me a very unprofessional approach of coding off the top of one's
> head ?????

Flowcharts have been out of fashion since the 1970s. State charts,
class diagrams and such are used today (but I can't say I've seen a
lot of those recently, either).

/Jorgen

--
// Jorgen Grahn <grahn@ Oo o. . .
\X/ snipabacken.se> O o .
Re: Visual programming [message #393799 is a reply to message #393777] Tue, 28 April 2020 11:22 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson

On 28/04/2020 1:41 am, Gareth Evans wrote:
> As to the suggestion that nobody uses flowcharts, this suggests
> to me a very unprofessional approach of coding off the top of one's head
> ?????

I learned flow charts in school, 25 years ago [1], and ever since, I
have never come across them in the field. Never. In 25 years.

I don't know if they're still taught in school; I would guess not.


[1] I guess that makes me a youngster in this group.

--
Johann | email: invalid -> com | www.myrkraverk.com/blog/
I'm not from the Internet, I just work there. | twitter: @myrkraverk
Re: Visual programming [message #393800 is a reply to message #393798] Tue, 28 April 2020 11:36 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ahem A Rivet's Shot is currently offline  Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Messages: 4843
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
On 28 Apr 2020 14:58:38 GMT
Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> wrote:

> Flowcharts have been out of fashion since the 1970s. State charts,
> class diagrams and such are used today (but I can't say I've seen a
> lot of those recently, either).

Class diagrams are usually generated from the code and comments to
serve as reference documentation rather than being drawn as design
documents. It's been a while since I had need of an FSM but if I do then a
state chart would certainly be a design document.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
Re: Visual programming [message #393801 is a reply to message #393799] Tue, 28 April 2020 12:21 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Jorgen Grahn is currently offline  Jorgen Grahn
Messages: 606
Registered: March 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
On Tue, 2020-04-28, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson wrote:
> On 28/04/2020 1:41 am, Gareth Evans wrote:
>> As to the suggestion that nobody uses flowcharts, this suggests
>> to me a very unprofessional approach of coding off the top of one's head
>> ?????
>
> I learned flow charts in school, 25 years ago [1], and ever since, I
> have never come across them in the field. Never. In 25 years.

IIRC, Fred Brooks noted that, although they were intended as a design
tool, his programmers produced the flow charts /after/ writing the
code. So he concluded they were not useful.

This was in "The Mythical Man-Month" or related writings, in the 1970s,
but the insight came much earlier, I suppose.

Turns out Brooks is still alive -- he turned 89
earlier this month.

/Jorgen

--
// Jorgen Grahn <grahn@ Oo o. . .
\X/ snipabacken.se> O o .
Re: Visual programming [message #393802 is a reply to message #393798] Tue, 28 April 2020 12:23 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: Gareth Evans

On 28/04/2020 15:58, Jorgen Grahn wrote:
>
> ... But I'm very
> text-oriented.

Well, I suppose that to some extent one's existing experiences
tend to colour one's approaches.

But were I to have to hand a facility that I'd only have to
press a single key to have a guaranteed working program
(pace that it would not actually do anything at all at first)
then I'd take to it with gusto.


> Then there's LabView ... also a graphical programming language, and in
> use in recent years. The original reason I learned Python was so I
> could avoid LabView.

LabView is a different kettle of fish, being an event
driven data flow facility targetted at electronic engineers
who are presumed to be frightened of computer programming.

My experience of LabView is that you need a lot of planning
up front to ensure that you do not end up with a rats' nest
of well-nigh impossible to maintain pictures. Labview is NOT
a graphical facility for imperative programming although ISTR
an HP facility that tried to hijack LabView's marketplace
by providing a structured programming approach.


>
> Flowcharts have been out of fashion since the 1970s. State charts,
> class diagrams and such are used today (but I can't say I've seen a
> lot of those recently, either).

When you've produced your class diagrams with whatever inheritances and
interfaces, flowcharting is then
appropriate at a lower level to design the algorithms for your
objects' methods.
Re: Visual programming [message #393803 is a reply to message #393801] Tue, 28 April 2020 12:31 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: Gareth Evans

On 28/04/2020 17:21, Jorgen Grahn wrote:
>
> This was in "The Mythical Man-Month" or related writings, in the 1970s,
> but the insight came much earlier, I suppose.

"Putting more people onto a late project
makes it later" strikes a chord from that book!
Re: Visual programming [message #393804 is a reply to message #393798] Tue, 28 April 2020 12:52 Go to previous messageGo to next message
scott is currently offline  scott
Messages: 4237
Registered: February 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> writes:
> On Mon, 2020-04-27, Gareth Evans wrote:
>> On 27/04/2020 17:51, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson wrote:
> ...
>>>   If you go for the latter, are you going for
>>> flowcharts which nobody is using anymore?  If you don't, are you
>>> going for some intuitive[*] graphical syntax?
>>
>> Let me answer your questions by another. When you see the
>> representations for Scratch on the screen, how does that
>> look different from flowcharts?
>
> I've used Scratch, and yes it looks like flowcharts. I found it
> painful to work with and never really "got" it. But I'm very
> text-oriented. I don't know how children (who can/cannot read)
> feel about it.
>
> Then there's LabView ... also a graphical programming language, and in
> use in recent years. The original reason I learned Python was so I
> could avoid LabView.
>
>> As to the suggestion that nobody uses flowcharts, this suggests to
>> me a very unprofessional approach of coding off the top of one's
>> head ?????
>
> Flowcharts have been out of fashion since the 1970s. State charts,
> class diagrams and such are used today (but I can't say I've seen a
> lot of those recently, either).

Back in 2000, I was working for a startup that was building a
software development system for B2B applications; primarily around
XML (W3C, SAML, etc). The development system was a graphical application
that allowed the user to link various elements together to build a
flow. There were ingress elements that received XML documents from
a TCP connnection, elements to process the XML through a XSL stylesheet,
elements that queried a database (JDBC/ODBC) using query keywords
extracted from an XML document, and elements to update the database and
elements to egress the XML document (or translate it to HTML to send to
a browser, for example).

The application builder would simply select from the library of elements,
customize them (i.e. specify the port for the JDBC connection to the back-end
database, create the stylesheets used to transform the XML into HTML or
other XML documents, etc.), perform various crypto operations.

Basically drag-n-drop programming. Very complicated web applications could
be created in minutes.

Verisign bought the company in 2001 for their crypto expertise and
the product was never productized, sadly.
Re: Visual programming [message #393805 is a reply to message #393801] Tue, 28 April 2020 13:33 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: Bob Eager

On Tue, 28 Apr 2020 16:21:50 +0000, Jorgen Grahn wrote:

> IIRC, Fred Brooks noted that, although they were intended as a design
> tool, his programmers produced the flow charts /after/ writing the code.
> So he concluded they were not useful.

Rather like students and comments in their code!

I had a student once submit a listing of a program (back in the days when
they still had to do that). The comments were all there, written in
pencil.

"I ran out of time to add those".

--
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org
Re: Visual programming [message #393806 is a reply to message #393798] Tue, 28 April 2020 14:14 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: maus

On 2020-04-28, Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> wrote:
> On Mon, 2020-04-27, Gareth Evans wrote:
>> On 27/04/2020 17:51, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson wrote:
> ...
>>>   If you go for the latter, are you going for
>>> flowcharts which nobody is using anymore?  If you don't, are you
>>> going for some intuitive[*] graphical syntax?
>>
>> Let me answer your questions by another. When you see the
>> representations for Scratch on the screen, how does that
>> look different from flowcharts?
>
> I've used Scratch, and yes it looks like flowcharts. I found it
> painful to work with and never really "got" it. But I'm very
> text-oriented. I don't know how children (who can/cannot read)
> feel about it.
>
> Then there's LabView ... also a graphical programming language, and in
> use in recent years. The original reason I learned Python was so I
> could avoid LabView.
>
>> As to the suggestion that nobody uses flowcharts, this suggests to
>> me a very unprofessional approach of coding off the top of one's
>> head ?????
>
> Flowcharts have been out of fashion since the 1970s. State charts,
> class diagrams and such are used today (but I can't say I've seen a
> lot of those recently, either).
>
> /Jorgen
>


What the modern millenials need is something that can be programed in
mobile-phone-speak :)

--
greymaus
Re: Visual programming [message #393820 is a reply to message #393802] Tue, 28 April 2020 14:01 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ahem A Rivet's Shot is currently offline  Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Messages: 4843
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
On Tue, 28 Apr 2020 17:23:31 +0100
Gareth Evans <headstone255@yahoo.com> wrote:

> When you've produced your class diagrams with whatever inheritances and
> interfaces, flowcharting is then
> appropriate at a lower level to design the algorithms for your
> objects' methods.

Object methods should generally be sufficiently simple not to need
flowcharting, complex algorithms should be coming from libraries.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
Re: Visual programming [message #393823 is a reply to message #393820] Tue, 28 April 2020 16:27 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: Gareth Evans

On 28/04/2020 19:01, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>
> Object methods should generally be sufficiently simple not to need
> flowcharting,

Perhaps in students' homework tasks



> complex algorithms should be coming from libraries.

Which libraries?

And with complex algorithms, flow charts are an
excellent graphical way of resolving complexities/
Re: Visual programming [message #393824 is a reply to message #393800] Tue, 28 April 2020 16:45 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Peter Flass is currently offline  Peter Flass
Messages: 8375
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
Senior Member
Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> wrote:
> On 28 Apr 2020 14:58:38 GMT
> Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> wrote:
>
>> Flowcharts have been out of fashion since the 1970s. State charts,
>> class diagrams and such are used today (but I can't say I've seen a
>> lot of those recently, either).
>
> Class diagrams are usually generated from the code and comments to
> serve as reference documentation rather than being drawn as design
> documents. It's been a while since I had need of an FSM but if I do then a
> state chart would certainly be a design document.
>

I use FSMs all the time, but they’re not usually complicated enough for a
state chart.

--
Pete
Re: Visual programming [message #393825 is a reply to message #393803] Tue, 28 April 2020 16:56 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Charlie Gibbs is currently offline  Charlie Gibbs
Messages: 5313
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
On 2020-04-28, Gareth Evans <headstone255@yahoo.com> wrote:

> On 28/04/2020 17:21, Jorgen Grahn wrote:
>
>> This was in "The Mythical Man-Month" or related writings, in the 1970s,
>> but the insight came much earlier, I suppose.
>
> "Putting more people onto a late project
> makes it later" strikes a chord from that book!

The bearing of a child takes nine months,
no matter how many women are assigned to the task.
-- Ibid.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Microsoft is a dictatorship.
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | Apple is a cult.
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | Linux is anarchy.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | Pick your poison.
Re: Visual programming [message #393826 is a reply to message #393805] Tue, 28 April 2020 16:56 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Charlie Gibbs is currently offline  Charlie Gibbs
Messages: 5313
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
On 2020-04-28, Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> wrote:

> On Tue, 28 Apr 2020 16:21:50 +0000, Jorgen Grahn wrote:
>
>> IIRC, Fred Brooks noted that, although they were intended as a design
>> tool, his programmers produced the flow charts /after/ writing the code.
>> So he concluded they were not useful.
>
> Rather like students and comments in their code!
>
> I had a student once submit a listing of a program (back in the days when
> they still had to do that). The comments were all there, written in
> pencil.
>
> "I ran out of time to add those".

At least it's better than an arrogant statement that
one's code is so readable that comments aren't necessary.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Microsoft is a dictatorship.
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | Apple is a cult.
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | Linux is anarchy.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | Pick your poison.
Re: Visual programming [message #393827 is a reply to message #393806] Tue, 28 April 2020 16:56 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Charlie Gibbs is currently offline  Charlie Gibbs
Messages: 5313
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
On 2020-04-28, maus <maus@dmaus.org> wrote:

> What the modern millenials need is something that can be programed in
> mobile-phone-speak :)

"Build a system that even a fool can use,
and only fools will want to use it."

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Microsoft is a dictatorship.
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | Apple is a cult.
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | Linux is anarchy.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | Pick your poison.
Re: Visual programming [message #393828 is a reply to message #393826] Tue, 28 April 2020 17:02 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: Bob Eager

On Tue, 28 Apr 2020 20:56:29 +0000, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

> On 2020-04-28, Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 28 Apr 2020 16:21:50 +0000, Jorgen Grahn wrote:
>>
>>> IIRC, Fred Brooks noted that, although they were intended as a design
>>> tool, his programmers produced the flow charts /after/ writing the
>>> code.
>>> So he concluded they were not useful.
>>
>> Rather like students and comments in their code!
>>
>> I had a student once submit a listing of a program (back in the days
>> when they still had to do that). The comments were all there, written
>> in pencil.
>>
>> "I ran out of time to add those".
>
> At least it's better than an arrogant statement that one's code is so
> readable that comments aren't necessary.

They wouldn't have dared.

Any more than they'd have tried to get a coursework extension because of
a disk crash. They were taught about backups.

--
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org
Re: Visual programming [message #393829 is a reply to message #393825] Tue, 28 April 2020 17:46 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: Gareth Evans

On 28/04/2020 21:56, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2020-04-28, Gareth Evans <headstone255@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> On 28/04/2020 17:21, Jorgen Grahn wrote:
>>
>>> This was in "The Mythical Man-Month" or related writings, in the 1970s,
>>> but the insight came much earlier, I suppose.
>>
>> "Putting more people onto a late project
>> makes it later" strikes a chord from that book!
>
> The bearing of a child takes nine months,
> no matter how many women are assigned to the task.
> -- Ibid.
>

Management in public organisations is like the mating of elephants.

It takes place at a high level.

It is accompanied by a great deal of roaring and screaming.

It takes 3 years to produce results.
Re: Visual programming [message #393830 is a reply to message #393823] Tue, 28 April 2020 18:14 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ahem A Rivet's Shot is currently offline  Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Messages: 4843
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
On Tue, 28 Apr 2020 21:27:17 +0100
Gareth Evans <headstone255@yahoo.com> wrote:

> On 28/04/2020 19:01, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>>
>> Object methods should generally be sufficiently simple not to
>> need flowcharting,
>
> Perhaps in students' homework tasks

The extreme of this is seen in the Enterprise Java style of
programming where methods are required to be simple and the complexity is
embedded in the object hierarchy, methods longer than 20 lines are frowned
upon in this community. Before you dismiss this as toy programming, it is
the norm in financial institutes these days.

>> complex algorithms should be coming from libraries.
>
> Which libraries?

The ones chock full of well implemented, tested (with deep
regression tests), documented and optimised algorithms that accompany every
major and most minor programming languages these days.

> And with complex algorithms, flow charts are an
> excellent graphical way of resolving complexities/

Have you ever seen a flow chart for a B-Tree insert operation, one
that covers all the edge cases and all the error handling ? I have, it was
a lot harder to make sense of than the code.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
Re: Visual programming [message #393831 is a reply to message #393801] Tue, 28 April 2020 19:04 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: J. Clarke

On 28 Apr 2020 16:21:50 GMT, Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se>
wrote:

> On Tue, 2020-04-28, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson wrote:
>> On 28/04/2020 1:41 am, Gareth Evans wrote:
>>> As to the suggestion that nobody uses flowcharts, this suggests
>>> to me a very unprofessional approach of coding off the top of one's head
>>> ?????
>>
>> I learned flow charts in school, 25 years ago [1], and ever since, I
>> have never come across them in the field. Never. In 25 years.
>
> IIRC, Fred Brooks noted that, although they were intended as a design
> tool, his programmers produced the flow charts /after/ writing the
> code. So he concluded they were not useful.

Many programmers have a tendency to start coding without _any_ plan.
And the result is often a huge mess.

> This was in "The Mythical Man-Month" or related writings, in the 1970s,
> but the insight came much earlier, I suppose.
>
> Turns out Brooks is still alive -- he turned 89
> earlier this month.
>
> /Jorgen
Re: Visual programming [message #393832 is a reply to message #393828] Tue, 28 April 2020 19:10 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: J. Clarke

On 28 Apr 2020 21:02:35 GMT, Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> wrote:

> On Tue, 28 Apr 2020 20:56:29 +0000, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>
>> On 2020-04-28, Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, 28 Apr 2020 16:21:50 +0000, Jorgen Grahn wrote:
>>>
>>>> IIRC, Fred Brooks noted that, although they were intended as a design
>>>> tool, his programmers produced the flow charts /after/ writing the
>>>> code.
>>>> So he concluded they were not useful.
>>>
>>> Rather like students and comments in their code!
>>>
>>> I had a student once submit a listing of a program (back in the days
>>> when they still had to do that). The comments were all there, written
>>> in pencil.
>>>
>>> "I ran out of time to add those".
>>
>> At least it's better than an arrogant statement that one's code is so
>> readable that comments aren't necessary.
>
> They wouldn't have dared.
>
> Any more than they'd have tried to get a coursework extension because of
> a disk crash. They were taught about backups.

I think that would depend on the crash. There was a famous incident
at UCONN where the VAX wouldn't boot. The VAX was owned by the
computer science department and didn't have dedicated staff. So the
professor who needed to run something swapped out the boot pack for
the backup, and it still wouldn't boot. So he put the original boot
pack in a different drive, and it still wouldn't boot, so he kept
trying different combinations of drive and pack until he had run out
of options.

The problem was that there had been a physical head crash on the boot
pack which burred the pack and burred the head. So he destroyed the
backup pack and all the drives. The machine didn't run again until
DEC had sent out a tech, the tech figured out what the problem was,
and replacements were delivered and installed.

I think in that circumstance it would be reasonable for all students
whose work depended on that machine to recieve extensions.
Re: Visual programming [message #393833 is a reply to message #393832] Tue, 28 April 2020 19:38 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: Bob Eager

On Tue, 28 Apr 2020 19:10:19 -0400, J. Clarke wrote:

> On 28 Apr 2020 21:02:35 GMT, Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 28 Apr 2020 20:56:29 +0000, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>>
>>> On 2020-04-28, Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Tue, 28 Apr 2020 16:21:50 +0000, Jorgen Grahn wrote:
>>>>
>>>> > IIRC, Fred Brooks noted that, although they were intended as a
>>>> > design tool, his programmers produced the flow charts /after/
>>>> > writing the code.
>>>> > So he concluded they were not useful.
>>>>
>>>> Rather like students and comments in their code!
>>>>
>>>> I had a student once submit a listing of a program (back in the days
>>>> when they still had to do that). The comments were all there, written
>>>> in pencil.
>>>>
>>>> "I ran out of time to add those".
>>>
>>> At least it's better than an arrogant statement that one's code is so
>>> readable that comments aren't necessary.
>>
>> They wouldn't have dared.
>>
>> Any more than they'd have tried to get a coursework extension because of
>> a disk crash. They were taught about backups.
>
> I think that would depend on the crash. There was a famous incident at
> UCONN where the VAX wouldn't boot. The VAX was owned by the computer
> science department and didn't have dedicated staff. So the professor
> who needed to run something swapped out the boot pack for the backup,
> and it still wouldn't boot. So he put the original boot pack in a
> different drive, and it still wouldn't boot, so he kept trying different
> combinations of drive and pack until he had run out of options.
>
> The problem was that there had been a physical head crash on the boot
> pack which burred the pack and burred the head. So he destroyed the
> backup pack and all the drives. The machine didn't run again until DEC
> had sent out a tech, the tech figured out what the problem was, and
> replacements were delivered and installed.
>
> I think in that circumstance it would be reasonable for all students
> whose work depended on that machine to recieve extensions.

That's true. And I have seen similar.

But these days it's usually 'my PC hard disk crashed'. Plenty of backup
options, including the university network (on a SAN).



--
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org
Re: Visual programming [message #393834 is a reply to message #393833] Tue, 28 April 2020 20:05 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: J. Clarke

On 28 Apr 2020 23:38:17 GMT, Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> wrote:

> On Tue, 28 Apr 2020 19:10:19 -0400, J. Clarke wrote:
>
>> On 28 Apr 2020 21:02:35 GMT, Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, 28 Apr 2020 20:56:29 +0000, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 2020-04-28, Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> > On Tue, 28 Apr 2020 16:21:50 +0000, Jorgen Grahn wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> >> IIRC, Fred Brooks noted that, although they were intended as a
>>>> >> design tool, his programmers produced the flow charts /after/
>>>> >> writing the code.
>>>> >> So he concluded they were not useful.
>>>> >
>>>> > Rather like students and comments in their code!
>>>> >
>>>> > I had a student once submit a listing of a program (back in the days
>>>> > when they still had to do that). The comments were all there, written
>>>> > in pencil.
>>>> >
>>>> > "I ran out of time to add those".
>>>>
>>>> At least it's better than an arrogant statement that one's code is so
>>>> readable that comments aren't necessary.
>>>
>>> They wouldn't have dared.
>>>
>>> Any more than they'd have tried to get a coursework extension because of
>>> a disk crash. They were taught about backups.
>>
>> I think that would depend on the crash. There was a famous incident at
>> UCONN where the VAX wouldn't boot. The VAX was owned by the computer
>> science department and didn't have dedicated staff. So the professor
>> who needed to run something swapped out the boot pack for the backup,
>> and it still wouldn't boot. So he put the original boot pack in a
>> different drive, and it still wouldn't boot, so he kept trying different
>> combinations of drive and pack until he had run out of options.
>>
>> The problem was that there had been a physical head crash on the boot
>> pack which burred the pack and burred the head. So he destroyed the
>> backup pack and all the drives. The machine didn't run again until DEC
>> had sent out a tech, the tech figured out what the problem was, and
>> replacements were delivered and installed.
>>
>> I think in that circumstance it would be reasonable for all students
>> whose work depended on that machine to recieve extensions.
>
> That's true. And I have seen similar.
>
> But these days it's usually 'my PC hard disk crashed'. Plenty of backup
> options, including the university network (on a SAN).

Google and Microsoft both throw cloud storage at you as well.

The last time I experienced an actual storage failure though was on a
Raspberry Pi--the downside on those things is that they run off a
Micro SD that has the MTBF of a fruit fly. Afterr that I reconfigured
it to boot off the MicroSD and run off a real SSD.
Re: Visual programming [message #393835 is a reply to message #393830] Wed, 29 April 2020 01:40 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Charlie Gibbs is currently offline  Charlie Gibbs
Messages: 5313
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
On 2020-04-28, Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> wrote:

> On Tue, 28 Apr 2020 21:27:17 +0100
> Gareth Evans <headstone255@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> On 28/04/2020 19:01, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>>
>>> Object methods should generally be sufficiently simple not to
>>> need flowcharting,
>>
>> Perhaps in students' homework tasks
>
> The extreme of this is seen in the Enterprise Java style of
> programming where methods are required to be simple and the complexity is
> embedded in the object hierarchy, methods longer than 20 lines are frowned
> upon in this community. Before you dismiss this as toy programming, it is
> the norm in financial institutes these days.

It's been the battle cry of Structured Programming zealots since the
late '70s. I refer to the more extreme cases as the Vegematic school
of programming: run your source code through a vegetable chopper,
then paste all the pieces back together with function calls.
I suspect some of these people consider the number of function
calls to be a figure of merit.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Microsoft is a dictatorship.
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | Apple is a cult.
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | Linux is anarchy.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | Pick your poison.
Re: Visual programming [message #393836 is a reply to message #393831] Wed, 29 April 2020 02:08 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson

On 29/04/2020 7:04 am, J. Clarke wrote:
> Many programmers have a tendency to start coding without_any_ plan.
> And the result is often a huge mess.

I believe it's because people aren't taught about the difference between
an experiment and production code. And the tendency to "ship"
experiments into production is rampant.

I can only speak for myself, but I have quite a different mindset and
discipline for the two: an expirement to see if something (usually an
unfamiliar API) works the way I expect it to, vs. production code that
builds on the experience I gained from the experiments and includes all
the minute error handling the API expects [1].

[1] Tested as much as I'm able, with fake errors, etc; but real errors
can be really hard to test for, because the components tend not to break
during development.

--
Johann | email: invalid -> com | www.myrkraverk.com/blog/
I'm not from the Internet, I just work there. | twitter: @myrkraverk
Re: Visual programming [message #393837 is a reply to message #393831] Wed, 29 April 2020 02:08 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ahem A Rivet's Shot is currently offline  Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Messages: 4843
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
On Tue, 28 Apr 2020 19:04:32 -0400
J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:

> Many programmers have a tendency to start coding without _any_ plan.
> And the result is often a huge mess.

I've had to reverse engineer and rewrite a few of those. Another
mess occurs when they do have a plan but it doesn't fit the problem and so
there's a ton of kludge to make it fit.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
Re: Visual programming [message #393838 is a reply to message #393834] Wed, 29 April 2020 02:05 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ahem A Rivet's Shot is currently offline  Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Messages: 4843
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
On Tue, 28 Apr 2020 20:05:36 -0400
J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:

> the MTBF of a fruit fly

Nice.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
Re: Visual programming [message #393839 is a reply to message #393832] Wed, 29 April 2020 05:30 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: Gareth Evans

On 29/04/2020 00:10, J. Clarke wrote:
>
> I think that would depend on the crash. There was a famous incident
> at UCONN where the VAX wouldn't boot. The VAX was owned by the
> computer science department and didn't have dedicated staff. So the
> professor who needed to run something swapped out the boot pack for
> the backup, and it still wouldn't boot. So he put the original boot
> pack in a different drive, and it still wouldn't boot, so he kept
> trying different combinations of drive and pack until he had run out
> of options.

Blimey! A similar thing happened to a dual-processor PDP11
project with 4 RK05 drives. Again, it had been a head crash,
and again all drives and disk packs were buggered.

Luckily we were only a week into entering our (MACRO-11) programs so we
could start from zero again.
Re: Visual programming [message #393840 is a reply to message #393834] Wed, 29 April 2020 05:40 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: Bob Eager

On Tue, 28 Apr 2020 20:05:36 -0400, J. Clarke wrote:

>> But these days it's usually 'my PC hard disk crashed'. Plenty of backup
>> options, including the university network (on a SAN).
>
> Google and Microsoft both throw cloud storage at you as well.
>
> The last time I experienced an actual storage failure though was on a
> Raspberry Pi--the downside on those things is that they run off a Micro
> SD that has the MTBF of a fruit fly. Afterr that I reconfigured it to
> boot off the MicroSD and run off a real SSD.

Indeed. And I shall remember that simile!

I'm paranoid about backups - goes back to managing various mainframes.

I have on-site copies, off-site copies - and cloud copies (using tarsnap).



--
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org
Re: Visual programming [message #393841 is a reply to message #393829] Wed, 29 April 2020 09:44 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: Paul_news

On 28/04/2020 22:46, Gareth Evans wrote:
> On 28/04/2020 21:56, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>> On 2020-04-28, Gareth Evans <headstone255@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 28/04/2020 17:21, Jorgen Grahn wrote:
>>>
>>>> This was in "The Mythical Man-Month" or related writings, in the 1970s,
>>>> but the insight came much earlier, I suppose.
>>>
>>> "Putting more people onto a late project
>>> makes it later" strikes a chord from that book!
>>
>>      The bearing of a child takes nine months,
>>      no matter how many women are assigned to the task.
>>        -- Ibid.
>>
>
> Management in public organisations is like the mating of elephants.
>
> It takes place at a high level.
>
> It is accompanied by a great deal of roaring and screaming.
>
> It takes 3 years to produce results.

There is a great risk of being trampled underfoot.

You are likely to get dumped on.
Re: Visual programming [message #393842 is a reply to message #393839] Wed, 29 April 2020 10:28 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Peter Flass is currently offline  Peter Flass
Messages: 8375
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
Senior Member
Gareth Evans <headstone255@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On 29/04/2020 00:10, J. Clarke wrote:
>>
>> I think that would depend on the crash. There was a famous incident
>> at UCONN where the VAX wouldn't boot. The VAX was owned by the
>> computer science department and didn't have dedicated staff. So the
>> professor who needed to run something swapped out the boot pack for
>> the backup, and it still wouldn't boot. So he put the original boot
>> pack in a different drive, and it still wouldn't boot, so he kept
>> trying different combinations of drive and pack until he had run out
>> of options.
>
> Blimey! A similar thing happened to a dual-processor PDP11
> project with 4 RK05 drives. Again, it had been a head crash,
> and again all drives and disk packs were buggered.
>
> Luckily we were only a week into entering our (MACRO-11) programs so we
> could start from zero again.
>
>

This story has been told many times about many different companies.

--
Pete
Re: Visual programming [message #393843 is a reply to message #393842] Wed, 29 April 2020 10:31 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ahem A Rivet's Shot is currently offline  Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Messages: 4843
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
On Wed, 29 Apr 2020 07:28:17 -0700
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:

> This story has been told many times about many different companies.

I rather suspect it was a not entirely uncommon event.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
Re: Visual programming [message #393844 is a reply to message #393836] Wed, 29 April 2020 12:39 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Charlie Gibbs is currently offline  Charlie Gibbs
Messages: 5313
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
On 2020-04-29, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> wrote:

> On 29/04/2020 7:04 am, J. Clarke wrote:
>
>> Many programmers have a tendency to start coding without_any_ plan.
>> And the result is often a huge mess.
>
> I believe it's because people aren't taught about the difference between
> an experiment and production code. And the tendency to "ship"
> experiments into production is rampant.

"There's never time to do it right, but always time to do it over."

> I can only speak for myself, but I have quite a different mindset and
> discipline for the two: an expirement to see if something (usually an
> unfamiliar API) works the way I expect it to, vs. production code that
> builds on the experience I gained from the experiments and includes all
> the minute error handling the API expects [1].

The hard part is maintaining a barrier between the two. It's easiest
to just not let management know you're doing experiments. (And probably
safer, since your typical PHB will just condemn you for "wasting time".)

On the other hand, if you do produce a one-shot report for them, be
prepared for them to say, "Hey, I like this report! Have a copy on
my desk every Monday morning." Hence my definition of a "one-shot"
program: something that you only need once... this week.

> [1] Tested as much as I'm able, with fake errors, etc; but real errors
> can be really hard to test for, because the components tend not to break
> during development.

Sing it, brother. No matter how much you test, something unforeseen
is going to come up the day the program goes into production.
I suspect this is some sort of natural law.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Microsoft is a dictatorship.
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | Apple is a cult.
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | Linux is anarchy.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | Pick your poison.
Re: Visual programming [message #393845 is a reply to message #393843] Wed, 29 April 2020 12:39 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Charlie Gibbs is currently offline  Charlie Gibbs
Messages: 5313
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
On 2020-04-29, Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> wrote:

> On Wed, 29 Apr 2020 07:28:17 -0700
> Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> This story has been told many times about many different companies.
>
> I rather suspect it was a not entirely uncommon event.

It had been making the rounds when I encountered a head crash.
One evening I was prepping a new pack, and the drive started
getting noisy. At first I thought it was just the spindle
bearing, which on this drive was a bit noisy anyway. But the
noise kept getting louder, so I killed the job, dismounted the
pack, and took a look at it. It was ugly. One surface was so
chewed up that you could see bare aluminum.

Needless to say, I immediately quarantined both the pack and
the drive, and reconfigured the system to run without them.

The fun came the next day when we called the CEs in. Univac
had always made dire threats about using Control Data packs.
Nobody had any choice, since Univac couldn't supply enough.
Eventually we had people from both Univac and CDC on site,
pointing fingers at each other.

There was nothing basically wrong with CDC packs. If they
worked once, they'd work forever. Just be careful the
first time...

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Microsoft is a dictatorship.
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | Apple is a cult.
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | Linux is anarchy.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | Pick your poison.
Re: Visual programming [message #393846 is a reply to message #393844] Wed, 29 April 2020 13:38 Go to previous messageGo to next message
scott is currently offline  scott
Messages: 4237
Registered: February 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:
> On 2020-04-29, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> wrote:
>
>> On 29/04/2020 7:04 am, J. Clarke wrote:
>>
>>> Many programmers have a tendency to start coding without_any_ plan.
>>> And the result is often a huge mess.
>>
>> I believe it's because people aren't taught about the difference between
>> an experiment and production code. And the tendency to "ship"
>> experiments into production is rampant.
>
> "There's never time to do it right, but always time to do it over."

I suspect that you're all making false generalizations from a small sample
size. What proof have any of you that "many programmers have a tendncy
to start coding without _any_ plan"?

That's not been my experience in the last four decades.
Re: Visual programming [message #393847 is a reply to message #393844] Wed, 29 April 2020 14:14 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ahem A Rivet's Shot is currently offline  Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Messages: 4843
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
On 29 Apr 2020 16:39:19 GMT
Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:

> Sing it, brother. No matter how much you test, something unforeseen
> is going to come up the day the program goes into production.
> I suspect this is some sort of natural law.

The ones that get me are the ones you find in the code while doing
something else that mean the thing couldn't possibly work and yet it's been
working in production for ages ... and then the field reports come in.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
Re: Visual programming [message #393848 is a reply to message #393846] Wed, 29 April 2020 14:46 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Peter Flass is currently offline  Peter Flass
Messages: 8375
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
Senior Member
Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:
> Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:
>> On 2020-04-29, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> On 29/04/2020 7:04 am, J. Clarke wrote:
>>>
>>>> Many programmers have a tendency to start coding without_any_ plan.
>>>> And the result is often a huge mess.
>>>
>>> I believe it's because people aren't taught about the difference between
>>> an experiment and production code. And the tendency to "ship"
>>> experiments into production is rampant.
>>
>> "There's never time to do it right, but always time to do it over."
>
> I suspect that you're all making false generalizations from a small sample
> size. What proof have any of you that "many programmers have a tendncy
> to start coding without _any_ plan"?
>
> That's not been my experience in the last four decades.
>

I think better in code, so a lot of times I start coding with the idea that
I will have to throw it away and start over, sometimes more than once. I
can think about a problem all I want, but nothing shows up the holes in a
design like actually coding it. I guess I still have _some_ plan going in.
Usually maybe 90% is usable no matter what the final design turns out to
be.

--
Pete
Re: Visual programming [message #393849 is a reply to message #393835] Wed, 29 April 2020 17:04 Go to previous messageGo to previous message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: J. Clarke

On 29 Apr 2020 05:40:45 GMT, Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid>
wrote:

> On 2020-04-28, Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 28 Apr 2020 21:27:17 +0100
>> Gareth Evans <headstone255@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 28/04/2020 19:01, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>>>
>>>> Object methods should generally be sufficiently simple not to
>>>> need flowcharting,
>>>
>>> Perhaps in students' homework tasks
>>
>> The extreme of this is seen in the Enterprise Java style of
>> programming where methods are required to be simple and the complexity is
>> embedded in the object hierarchy, methods longer than 20 lines are frowned
>> upon in this community. Before you dismiss this as toy programming, it is
>> the norm in financial institutes these days.
>
> It's been the battle cry of Structured Programming zealots since the
> late '70s. I refer to the more extreme cases as the Vegematic school
> of programming: run your source code through a vegetable chopper,
> then paste all the pieces back together with function calls.
> I suspect some of these people consider the number of function
> calls to be a figure of merit.

The financial institute where I work tried Java, were horrified at the
pitiful performance, and gave up on that idea.
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