Visible objects
It's strangely surreal to see a complicated software system...to actually see it. All the software objects actually in front of you, appearing and disappearing and doing their thing.
Object oriented programming, with visible objects. Beats that 'visual' programming guff for sheer niftiness, I must say.
Oh, I think a lot of good programmers out there "visualize" the representation of their objects and relationships to one another. Something like UML diagrams, but without the strict terminology and all those confusing types of lines.
ReplyDeleteBut actually seeing the connections in action could open up elementary (and maybe not-so-elementary) programming to a whole new audience.
I've always seen systems in a sense, though not quite visually. I more sense them in sets of arbitrary level-of-detail abstracts, whether they're software, weather systems, neurobiological assemblies or whatever.
ReplyDeleteTo me they've always existed as maps or directed graphs, available at any level of detail, but always as visual maps populated by non-visual components never quite as actual imagery.