Folk wisdom on visual programming
&quot;A picture paints a thousand words, sure, but here&#x27;s a thousand word essay. Try painting me a picture of it.&quot;<p>I don&#x27;t remember where I hard that, or close to it, but there&#x27;s a lot of truth to it. There do seem to be some very useful visual logic and work flow tools, I hope that continues, but there&#x27;s something magical about the ability of language to explain, describe and precisely define things.<p>Maybe eventually we&#x27;ll arrive at a state where really good programming environments incorporate the advantages of both textual and visual tools in a powerful and dynamic way. I love films and picture books, I also love novels, but even the best novels are enhanced by really good illustrations and sometimes even maps. Some authors find visual tools like relationship maps and even geographic maps help them in the actual authoring process too.