I really like this on multiple levels, because its something I've been thinking about for many years (and even took various stabs at implementing):
I love the visual/textual dual language concept - I've been trying to figure out a good solution where both work well and no information is lost from one by editing the other (eg if I create something visually, but edit it textually, does the layout get ruined?) and, at a glance, you seem to have largely solved this or at least managed to get it working well enough. Awesome.
I also like this as a tool for data processing. This kind of platform is something I've been wanting to build (and prototyped once a number of years ago even) for a long time. Couple it with a simple (and familiar) spreadsheet system and your golden (for my purposes - other people may think otherwise).
I haven't looked at Luna in any detail yet, really just glanced at the screenshots so far (I hope to read the material properly tomorrow), but one concern that jumped out at me was that the visual language semantics aren't clear to me. Of course, its probably unreasonable to expect to understand a new language without having read the documentation, so its unlikely to be an issue. I only point it out because I've seen a number of other visual languages claim to be super user friendly (even to non-programmers in many cases), when, IMHO, it really isn't unless you already deeply understand the concepts. I didn't see you making this claim though, so all good :)
Overall, I'm excited for this and wish you the best of luck. Hopefully you will choose me for alpha access so I can play with it ;-) :-P
Thank you for such an awesome comment and your attitude! :)
We've put an enormous amount of work to address the issues you've covered - including creating a system where you can edit text / graph without breaking the other one.
I'm happy that so many people were thinking to do something going this way - we hear it often. This shows us that this need is widely seen and there is nothing we want more than just collaborate with these people. We will be releasing Luna shortly as Open Source project and will be helping growing community around it. I will be supper happy helping utilizing / extending it for your needs!
As I described before, the timing for this info is not the best, because Luna is not yet available, but it will be really shortly.
Luna introduces some abstraction levels. Some of the leaves (the highest ones) could be usable by less-technical people, but of course only after they get familiar with the concept! :)
Thank you and looking forward to building something interesting together! :)
I love the visual/textual dual language concept - I've been trying to figure out a good solution where both work well and no information is lost from one by editing the other (eg if I create something visually, but edit it textually, does the layout get ruined?) and, at a glance, you seem to have largely solved this or at least managed to get it working well enough. Awesome.
I also like this as a tool for data processing. This kind of platform is something I've been wanting to build (and prototyped once a number of years ago even) for a long time. Couple it with a simple (and familiar) spreadsheet system and your golden (for my purposes - other people may think otherwise).
I haven't looked at Luna in any detail yet, really just glanced at the screenshots so far (I hope to read the material properly tomorrow), but one concern that jumped out at me was that the visual language semantics aren't clear to me. Of course, its probably unreasonable to expect to understand a new language without having read the documentation, so its unlikely to be an issue. I only point it out because I've seen a number of other visual languages claim to be super user friendly (even to non-programmers in many cases), when, IMHO, it really isn't unless you already deeply understand the concepts. I didn't see you making this claim though, so all good :)
Overall, I'm excited for this and wish you the best of luck. Hopefully you will choose me for alpha access so I can play with it ;-) :-P