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I had a similar thought while building a visual workout programming system for bodybuilding.
One thing I keep running into is that workout programs are essentially state machines progression rules, deloads, conditional branches, different exercise substitutions, autoregulation etc...
That made me wonder whether a visual programming model would make these systems more approachable. I'm still unconvinced, though. Unlike automation workflows where the graph itself reveals the logic, I'm not sure what the right visual abstraction is for training programs without making them even more overwhelming.
So far i've a workout programming language and bunch of sample programs and an app which can help you execute these workout plans, all free ofc: https://symbiote-studio.macrocodex.app/?builtin=gzclp
A key feature about data-flow programming that seems too often missed is that it is (or can be) hierarchical.
Define a subgraph of atomic nodes as itself a node with its ports formed from as-yet unconnected ports of its atomic constituents. Compose yet higher subgraphs of subgraphs and atomic nodes. Package all this in some way.
This is directly analogous to syntactic programming where functions aggregate other function calls and all that packaged into a library with an API.
This is amazing work. I've used GPIOZero in my RPi projects before. In the future, you can introduce conditional operators in the flow. It can become a complete coding platform.
See JSONLogic UI for similar implementation: https://github.com/GoPlasmatic/datalogic-rs Disclaimer: I am the maintainer of the datalogic-rs project
FYI, the general paradigm here is named flow-based programming (FBP):
Somehow these visual programming tools never seem to get much traction.
Are there any exceptions?
Good stuff, keeping it
Hi ben :)
I am totally pressed. What now?
the problem is every visual programming tool eventually reaches the point where you need a 'code node' and then everyone just writes code