All "real" Engineering disciplines use diagrams as a form of communication from Engineers to Implementors (e.g. structural engineering -> blueprints, Chem Eng -> diagrams of molecules, Electrial Eng -> schematics). The result of not separating Engineering from Implementation is the notion of “cottage industry”.
Diagrams allow overlapping of figures. Text, as we know it, only uses grids of small bitmaps (aka "characters", 5x7, 6x12, etc.) that are not allowed to overlap.,
The issue of inventing "names" goes away with diagrams. X/Y point positions are enough, machines can grok points, humans don't need to look at the numeric values. De Bruijn says so, too ("de Bruijn index" formalization (aka “Forth”))
From Raskin's "Human Interface". When figures overlap, single operations operate only on the topmost figure. To get at underlying figures, consider the figures to comprise a "ring" and roll the ring so that the desired figure is selected for operation (suggestion: TAB key for rolling),
State machines express control flow, but, are only meh for expressing "code" (functions, calculations). Text languages tend to obscure control flow. We need both, SMs and code. Actually we need HSMs - hierarchical state machines - instead of flat SMs. And, we need total isolation (data encapsulation AND control flow encapsulation) for asynchronous thinking. "Internet" is real async, "threads" are simulated async)
textual programming languages were created by selecting certain words from the English language. TPLs don't compile War and Peace. IMO, DPLs should be based on the same principle: extract only a small few kinds of figures from the gamut of visualizations, consider that group of figures to be a "language", compile only that "language" and raise syntax errors otherwise.
See Also
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