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List:       xml-cocoon-dev
Subject:    RE: Cool (work)flow GUI editor
From:       "Paul Brown" <prb () fivesight ! com>
Date:       2003-07-31 15:58:00
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>[Vadim Gritsenko]
> [Stefano Mazzocchi]
> > It was sooooooo cool when you saw a demo.
> > Horrible to work with it.
> > why? visual programming is bullshit. 
> Not if it supports full round trip, nonvisual -> visual 
> -> nonvisual. 

Visual programming is very old, i.e., 1960's.

(http://radio.weblogs.com/0119894/2003/04/23.html for pointers to some
resources and blog entries)

There is a level of detail and interactivity which is appropriate for
different "sizes" of represented objects:

High detail (e.g., expressions/lines of Java code) --> Representation
only with all interaction done with the underlying code.

Lower detail (e.g., web pages, business objects, web services calls) -->
Visual manipulation via model without access to underlying code,
property panels for configuration, drill-down to code or expressions

Low detail (e.g., web applications, physical servers) --> Representation
only with real-time updates and some interactivity (e.g.,
monitoring/management)

For a platform like Cocoon, a visual representation with linkage or
drill-down to locations in configuration files or source code would be
the way to go.  The representation would have to be regenerated with
changes, but it would provide a visual overview.  (This could probably
even be done with SVG...)

$0.02,

	-- PB

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