Design of a visual environment for programming by direct data manipulation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel visual programming environment enabling users to develop Turing-complete programs through direct data manipulation, eliminating the need for traditional coding and simplifying program development.

Contribution

It presents an original tool that allows visual, direct data manipulation for programming, supporting iteration construction and code generation in multiple languages.

Findings

Supports visual development of arbitrary programs

Allows creation of iterations in a non-linear manner

Generates code in Python, C, or Java

Abstract

The use of applications on computers, smartphones, and tablets has been considerably simplied thanks to interactive and dynamic graphical interfaces coupled with the mouse and touch screens. It is no longer necessary to be a computer specialist to use them. Paradoxically, the development of computer programs generally requires writing lines of code in a programming language whose syntax is particularly strict. This process poses many diculties for programmers. We propose an original tool in which arbitrary programs (Turing-complete) can be developed in a completely visual manner by direct manipulation of the data, without writing a line of code. The user can thus develop an algorithm by directly visualizing the result of actions taken on the data. A method for constructing iterations is associated with the tool. It proposes to create each part, including the loop body, in a non-linear manner under visual control of the state of the data. In addition, the tool supports the production of code that corresponds to the actions performed, where the language can be Python, C, or Java. In this article, we present the tool, the design choices, the problems solved, and the limits and contributions of the direct-data-manipulation approach.