> Graphic programming could be used as learning tool, just like a set of training wheels, but just as them it would eventually become a hindrance as both make simple problems simple and everything else much more complex or virtually impossible.
For visual languages such as Squeak, and Skov, the idea is indeed to make programming easier for people.
However, visual programming has another important raison d'être. MIMD programs algorithms are more naturally expressed as dataflow, so that task scheduling and load-balancing become almost trivial, and dataflow is more naturally expressed graphically.
Now we have multicore machines and it is difficult to make optimal use of resources with mainstream imperative programming languages.
Graphs are, as you point out, a very flexible data structure, and there ought to be something to be gained in representing programs as graphs, and having programs operate on graphs. Lisp and Prolog benefit from homoiconicity.
For visual languages such as Squeak, and Skov, the idea is indeed to make programming easier for people.
However, visual programming has another important raison d'être. MIMD programs algorithms are more naturally expressed as dataflow, so that task scheduling and load-balancing become almost trivial, and dataflow is more naturally expressed graphically.
Now we have multicore machines and it is difficult to make optimal use of resources with mainstream imperative programming languages.
Graphs are, as you point out, a very flexible data structure, and there ought to be something to be gained in representing programs as graphs, and having programs operate on graphs. Lisp and Prolog benefit from homoiconicity.