
Fabrik – A Visual Programming Environment (1988) - panic
http://sp.cmc.msu.ru/courses/smalltalk/fabrik/Fabrik.html
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dangoor
See also Lively Fabrik: [http://www.lively-kernel.org/repository/lively-
wiki/Fabrik.x...](http://www.lively-kernel.org/repository/lively-
wiki/Fabrik.xhtml)

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panic
_Experience with Fabrik suggests that a successful visual programming kit
requires only three things: Specification of an effective visual and
computational interface for each component, interactive access to an
interesting (network) library of existing components, and the ability to use
and combine these components interactively to build new library components and
finished applications._

To maybe get some discussion going: are there any programming kits today that
have all three of these attributes?

~~~
clouddrover
> _are there any programming kits today that have all three of these
> attributes?_

While not a fully visual development environment, I'd say Delphi. I think they
got the design right 21 years ago. They struck the right balance between
visual and non-visual development and married that to a language (Object
Pascal) which had fast compilation, directness, and simplicity while also
offering low-level capability.

Chuck Jazdzewski was one of the original Delphi developers. Last year he wrote
a series of articles on the early days of Delphi:
[http://removingalldoubt.com/](http://removingalldoubt.com/)

It's a shame Object Pascal isn't more widely used. It's a nice language. Maybe
Free Pascal ([http://www.freepascal.org](http://www.freepascal.org)) and
Lazarus ([http://www.lazarus-ide.org/](http://www.lazarus-ide.org/)) can
spread the Pascal gospel.

~~~
boduh
The articles from Chuck Jazdzewski made my day. I sometimes wonder what the
early members of the Delphi team are working on today. Thanks for sharing the
link!

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speps
That looks a LOT like PureData : [http://en.flossmanuals.net/pure-
data/introduction/graphical-...](http://en.flossmanuals.net/pure-
data/introduction/graphical-programming/)

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spacemanmatt
Talend also offers a visual programming environment, and I would rather write
code any day. If your programming work is simple, and you don't care about
conditionals, logging, or error handling, it makes some tasks easier. The
second it doesn't make your task easier, it makes it much harder than
programming with code.

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nikki93
Haha, this is very much like Reaktor 6 'blocks', esp. the "user frame" stuff.

[https://youtu.be/yl_VXrTET7k](https://youtu.be/yl_VXrTET7k)

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setori88
Take a look at Fractalide
[http://github.com/fractalide/fractalide](http://github.com/fractalide/fractalide)
It uses Nix Expressions to lazily coordinate the building and port linking of
components.

