Ask HN: Why is visual programming so popular for game programming?
I’m a huge fan of blueprints. A few things it does well:<p>* makes the engine api very discoverable, which is huge. It’s a step above intellisense and auto complete. The api is likely the reason it’s so dominate in games. It’s the bulk of game programming. Visual programming isn’t very good for coding new things from scratch.<p>* let’s you read code and clearly follow execution from start to finish.<p>* let’s you visually document concepts with collapsed nodes, and colored containers and what not. Good blueprints are literally written as long form pseudo code, with double clicks to see actual implementation.<p>* concepts like const functions are just conceptually clearer. Const functions have no execution pin. They (should) have no side effects. Just a calculation. The engine doesn’t enforce this I don’t think but it’s close…<p>What it explicitly does not do is allow you to code games without knowing how to code. Countless beginners just die on the first steps. You still need to understand object oriented design and basic coding concepts to do well.