Photo of Terence Eden. He has a beard and is smiling.

Terence Eden’s Blog

Why aren't there more visual programming languages? (An ode to DRAKON)

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Part of the MD5 algorithm expressed in colourful Lego blocks.

I think the computer programming industry is about to reach a reckoning. No, not because ChatGPT can poorly plagiarise buggy code - but because a whole generation of kids have grown up with Scratch. And they'll want professional tools which have Scratch's level of usability. Hand-coding YAML files is a mug's game; one wrong whitespace and everything is broken. Left a semi-colon off the end of a…

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Use DRAKON to Generate Code from Flowcharts

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It's 1986. You're working on the Russian's Buran space programme - trying to create a re-usable space vehicle which will exceed the capabilities of the American's "Space Shuttle". There's a problem. You have very complicated real-time algorithms which you need to review, improve, optimise, and then turn into code. How do you do it? Obviously, you invent DRAKON! ДРАКОН, "dragon" Backronym for…

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