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So in the past I have used two self-proclaimed "visual programming languages", Blueprints[1] and Max[2] and in both cases I found that it is actually harder to be productive while dealing with UI elements than it is to simply write code (as long as you have at least some rudimentary form of autocomplete I guess).

However I have to say that, based on the little I've seen, Luna's UI seems to be actually developer-friendly i.e. the UI elements go hand-in-hand with code rather than getting in the way, I think it's brilliant, sort of Jupyter Notebooks on steroids.

[1] https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Blueprints/

[2] https://cycling74.com/products/max



What is interesting here is that you can switch between code and visual representation. All luna code can be looked at in either mode.

Max does allow you to use JavaScript or Java and they are doing a lot right now with JavaScript interop/export.


Thanks for pointing me in that direction, I should have looked at the JS interop capabilities in Max.


Part of the difficulty, I think, may be the mismatch between how Luna represents a piece of code and how I visualize it in my head. Is Luna going to draw a line between some related things when I would rather see them, say, in the same color? Will it show an arrow pointing from a data source to its destination, when I would rather see the destination pointing to it's source?

My worry is that Luna's visual model of the code will not match my mental model, and the impedance will be too much to overcome.




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