Extend - LabView

OK, we've talked about traditional programming languages being textual in nature, and we've also pointed out that a major benefit of LabView is that it provides a graphical method for programming certain tasks. So the obvious question is...

Why aren't programming languages moving towards a graphical input method?

Think a little bit about this, and ask yourself these questions:

• Are some programming tasks easier to represent graphically than others?
• If so, what kinds of programming tasks lend themselves to development using graphical objects?
• What types of tasks don't?

Put another way, which programmatic tasks have obvious graphical representations, and which ones don't?

Try this:

• Come up with a set of procedures or tasks that you believe can be represented with pictures that clearly identify their function.
• Next, try to think of some things that are more metaphysical in nature, and therefore harder to visualize or define graphically.
• Is there some common thread, some set of attributes, that the first set of tasks share? What do the tasks that don't lend themselves well to expression as a picture have in common?

Bring what you've come up with to class; we can spend some time discussing them.