Graham Klyne writes:
> This looks like much fun. I took a quick look at the screenshots, but > don't see any provision for graphical display of *programs* -- is there? At present, there isn't. But plans are to incorporate a graphical style of programming, much along the lines of the Dami and Vallet paper on "Higher-order functional composition in visual form" http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/dami96higherorder.html > I've sometimes thought that a functional language would be the ideal > platform to usher in a purely graphical style of programming; there have > been a few attempts over the years to do purely graphical programming, but > they seem to founder somewhat on impedance mismatch between static visual > presentation and dynamic behaviour of an imperative program, and I could > see referential transparency eliminating some of these difficulties. I agree. A graphical programming style is essentially a declarative one, and so needs to be coupled with a purely declarative programming language -- and of course a functional programming language is ideal for this. > Also, > one could very easily imagine a graphical representation of a "point free" > style of programming, with its emphasis on combination of functions. The > Lego Mindstorms system is representative of the kind of environment where I > think graphical and functional styles could merge very neatly. I think many potential uses of functional programming languages, who might find the functional composition dot operator a bit foreign, do indeed feel perfectly at home linking chains of function-boxes together. Graphical programming has a lot going for it. Keith Hanna _______________________________________________ Haskell mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell