Visual programming on a whole new level

Usually when you talk about visual programming, you bring up the Visual X or Visual Y adaptation of a C variant or (god forbid) Basic. But that's not really visual programming. It lets you drag and drop some buttons, but the programming bit is mostly done at the keyboard by writing actual code. That looks like it might change, and soon.

A while back, Bryan Lunduke over at Lunduke.com described his goal of creating a completely visual way for writing programs with LEGO like building blocks. At the time I thought he was a bit crazy. Don't get me wrong, crazy in a good way, but crazy nonetheless. What's worse he actually started to work on a bit of software to do it, so he wasn't just talking the talk but walking the walk and coding the code. When Google came out with it's App Inventor, showing interest in creating a really visual way of programming, I got the feeling maybe there's something to this whole malarkey.

As Google's App Inventor is still not open to the public, I tested out Bryan's Illumination Software Creator and proceeded to slap myself repeatedly for not having thought of doing this myself (probably true of most good ideas). It basically just takes the flowcharts taught in beginner computer programming classes and gives you a way to actually run the resulting program. But it gets better as you can also export the code for any supported platform. At the moment of writing, ISC supports Python for Windows, Mac and Linux as well as Maemo devices and Adobe Flex. What's more, the developer is constantly adding new platforms and functionality (a prerelease of version 2.1 should launch today with full Android support). Writing your code once and having it run on any platform is, to anyone who has had to port, a dream come true. Letting the computer do the heavy lifting of actually writing the code while you just draw the flow of the application is pure fantasy.

I'm not saying that all programming should be done this way, but learning? Heck yeah! Most Computer Science programmes contain about half a year faffing about with flowcharts and pseudocode. Put them in front of a piece of software like ISC and within minutes they will be able, not only to set out the logic of an application, but test it and even get a look at the code to learn how to write it themselves.

Since it's inception, programming has gone from writing bits, to assembly languages, to high level languages and frameworks upon frameworks in an attempt to make the code independent of the OS and hardware it's running on. Maybe it's the kool-aid talking, but isn't cutting out the code the next logical step?

PS: Illumination Software Creator is on a "Name Your Own Price Sale" right now, so get it while it's hot. Even if you don't plan on buying it because you're a real programmer and the only software development platform you need is emacs and a compiler, you should at least check out the trial to get a taste of the future.