Let's just call miming physical switch travel and movement what it is: skeuomorphic animation
And just like its design counterpoint, while some may enjoy the aesthetic, it's actually superfluous and we've mostly moved on.
I get it, it's visual, it's easy to show one's boss domain knowledge; it doesn't do anything for accessibility and the feel (dependable repeatable ui workflow).
Eh, I guess slapping some literal, variable, and operation nodes together makes it visual, but I don't think it makes it easier.
Contrast with something like Scratch which is useful because it helps prevent typos, clearly presents expected arguments, and creates snap connected chains of logic.
Even better, contrast something like Drakon which offers visual abstractions such as skewers, happy paths, silhuettes, common fate, etc.
I really like the concept of visual abstractions. Nodes are abstractions but I don't think they are high enough level to improve over text. And I think text will always be awesome even if it is assisted by better ways to animate and visualize logic and systems.
Also, can I grep over Flyde? I'd hate to lose that basic ability.
For those proficient in writing textual programs, a tool such as Flyde as-is might provide value by enforcing modules to be stand-alone and well-defined; the premise of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow-based_programming as a paradigm that promised value even without using a visual editor, and just by adhering to the concept.
But for those who lack the understanding of coding syntax and grammar, a visual tool, even in a not-much-higher level of attraction, could make all the difference. I've personally mentored dozens of entry-level developers many struggled with concurrency and asynchronicity. (callbacks, promises, etc). these are concepts that become a no-brainer using a nodes-and-wires editor.
Regarding prepping - fair point. I'm sure it's not what you meant, but here's a grep in a Flyde flow (the second example) - https://imgur.com/a/V9u1ETl
Thank you for your reply. I'm usually skeptical of visual paradigms but I'm not trying to be critical.
Looking at flow-based programming, it looks like it could help in visualizing and understanding asynchronous systems that wouldn't be so intuitive from a code listing. In that way, I suppose it would force a functional style as well. So maybe good for gluing those parts of one's apps together.
I did look at the code examples; attributes and code wrapped in json. Obviously greppable, but then if one expected a learner to grep, version diff, author tests?, linting?, etc. they still must dip into and learn regular dev tools.
I don't know if Flyde is supposed to eventually subsume that other functionality or if it is a higher scripting layer used in conjunction, and so must eventually be learned anyway.
Or is Flyde just trying to introduce an easier coding path in order to bypass the more superfluous parts of software dev such as tabs vs spaces, editor choice, oop vs functional vs procedural vs whatever.
Interesting take on "visual abstraction" vs "visual representation" (if I may add the wording), where Drakon represents the former and Flyde the latter.
I'm uncertain to what extent visual _representations_ of real code has anything to offer developers as a target group. I think it's the strive to have FBP represent already human-friendly code that gets in our way of thinking.
At the end of the day I want to define and execute logic without having to approach parallelism and asynchronicity as programming concepts. Instead the paradigm should transform such challenges into spatial ones. Instead the paradigm should transform such challenges into spatial ones. (Yes I wrote that twice for effect.)
I have yet to see such a system, but Drakon comes close.
I like the "visual abstraction" vs "visual representation" distinction, and agree with your point that Flyde falls into the latter.
Regarding parallelism and asynchronicity, Flyde manages to answer that need. You simply connect 2 nodes in parallel - for example - https://imgur.com/a/GJewFHd this fetches data from 2 apis, maps them and collects them into a new object. It's low-level for sure, but parallelism and asynchronicity are completely spatial. Do you mean it in a different way?
That way, yes. I mean a transformation into spatial problems in much the hardware design way, e.g. the "I need to find a way to add that node without crossing any wires" way. Your example is surely elegant for Promise.all(), although it's a happy path. Can users manage rejected promises, Promise.any() or Promise.allSettled() through nodes and wiring (i.e. not through hidden configuration)?
I think so, yes.
A rejected promise is equivalent to a node that throws an error. Flyde exposes a default "error" output pin for each node. As everything in Flyde is async, any error thrown can be viewed as a rejected promise.
Promise.any can be achieved with 3 promises and a throttle node
Promise.allSettled translated to connecting the error output pin and hooking it to whatever you wanted the fulfilled value to go.
Open Source is more like a designation. It is an agreed upon set of requirements that, if you change a requirement, it is something else. This is important.
Some things have legally protected designations such as 'ice cream'. Ice Cream has specific meaning in industry and even a grading system. If someone wants to make a cheaper product than the lowest grade of ice cream, they can't call it ice cream, they have to call it something like: frozen dairy dessert.
This makes it easy for people understand what they are actually getting and paying for.
I wouldn't get indignant about mandating english language definitions. I would be indignant that ai companies are not fulfilling the requirements to call it open source and are providing a cheaper product than the abilities that an actual open source model would provide.
It seems likely that the only way to become a billionaire is through worker exploitation, collusion, cheating the system through tax evation and asset laundering, etc.
I think politico-economic interference is the crux of the problem.
For example, someone with $10 million are trying to maintain their lifestyle, they want to know what stocks, bonds, and certificates, and real estate to invest in.
Someone with $100 million are trying to leverage through venture capital, joining corporate boards, owning platforms, etc.
Someone with $1+ billion will find that the most cost effective way to keep and gain wealth is buying lobbyists, campaign donations, starting and controlling some non-profits that have tax and spending incentives, getting favors by giving politician's kids high profile jobs, and any other innumberable political grift that maintain their wealth status and that only really work at that scale.
I wouldn't care if billionaires were just hoarding some money. But they are not, and all this while they pay bad wages and have even shoved off the cost of training for their jobs onto society and the labor force who have to speculate and pay for their own training.
> It seems likely that the only way to become a billionaire is through worker exploitation, collusion, cheating the system through tax evation and asset laundering, etc.
What workers did J.K. Rowling exploit to become a billionaire? Did Stephen King only cheat half as much to arrive at his half-billion net worth? They produced something that people wanted to buy that previously did not exist, and everyone in the chain got paid what they were willing to work for.
In what world does it "seem likely" that you can only become a billionaire through illicit means?
JK Rowling exploiting workers is a straw man and sidesteps the point.
To some people what I wrote will be a truism and to others it will beg the question.
I see what side that fell on for you and that's good, I'm not citing anything, so definitely question my reasoning. But don't think for a second that producing a handful of books people ended up wanting can generate that amount of value.
In the case of Rowling, she was also executive producer of several Harry Potter films and was no doubt a benificiary of motion picture accounting to a greater or lesser degree. She controls charities and who knows how many shell companies and trusts to hide and manipulate wealth. That's what you have access to at that scale of rich.
Furthermore, if she wasn't cooking the books, hiding and differentiating wealth for tax benefit, placing herself in position to extract more wealth, then she would be the stupid one among her rich peer group and would quickly find herself like one of those lottery winners who are back to being poor and none the wiser 5 years later.
Another truism is that it sounds fun to be rich, but it probably isn't very.
Another truism is that I'm sure we'd all rather suffer being rich than be poor.
It doesn't sidestep the point, it shows the value of your truism, particularly in a 21st century globalized, internet-scale economy.
Who's being exploited if I upload a song (or ringtone, or wallpaper) to an app store for $0.99 and it gets millions - perhaps even billions - of downloads?
(Answer: me, because of the app stores' rapacious policies)
Because, someone doesn't just create millions of dollars of value, teams of people do. And in the current system someone does get to choose where to cut the "sandwich" and they get to choose which side they take. And with negligible repercussion, they choose the largest portion.
It's basically incentive to steal.
It's basically taking credit for someone else's work. But it's taking their share of wealth.
I've been using FitoTrack from the F-Droid appstore. It works fantastic, offline, private, and looking at the screenshots of the Outrun app have very similar look & layout.
Sounds like the tried and true way. I'm always interested in learning about computing history and the people that set up the groundwork. The more I read, the more I find that tech doesn't learn much from its past and we're just stuck with many inferior iterations of the same things.
I found a copy of, Notes On Structured Programming, by Dijkstra. I'm going to start giving it a read tomorrow (it's a whopping 88pg essay).
It seems that Dijkstra did a lot of paper design work because he was programming for hardware that didn't exist in a programmable form yet.
Hmmm, no I've never heard of this although I've used a similar offline doc reader called Zeal.
I just checked it out and it looks cool but I don't think it's for me. I use a Firefox extension called Saka Key that allows me to fully navigate web pages and tabbing with the keyboard but it doesn't work so well when a web page wants to be an app instead of a page. The site forces focus in a text search box and pressing escape doesn't leave the text box, it just replaces displaying the welcome message. It's a usability issue for me :(
reply