Visual Programming Languages; Humanity's First Cybernetic Enhancement
To classify as an enhancement, it has to be something really powerful and almost personal.
Internet and large language models qualify, from a broader definition.
But they are not personal, neither are locked down smartphones.
Or your news feeds, though feeds are close, they are not yours, and can be used to mislead you.
A visual programming language is personal, because you create things that are in-fact your own.
But, wait, a visual programming language, is not just a programming language.
It serves as an interface to the entire world, and a concept map of everything you are interested in.
And, and perhaps most importantly, it is a powerful interface in into standard programming.
In a visual programming language, you are granted first class ticketsā¦
To the simple programs behind the nodes, the way View Source once granted access o all web page code.
My simplest example, is your thermostat, you have to be able to program it.
A visual programming language will let you do that easily, you will enhance your self with warmer air.
I know that none of this sounds like cybernetic enhancement, but that is because you are yet to experience the power of programming.
Once you find your general purpose visual programming language, usage of which feels like an extension of you.
That will absolutely be your first cybernetic enhancement, the best way to see that, is to look back 20 years from the futureā¦
At all the programs you dragged and dropped over the ages, how they change and changed the world around you, you see.
Finally, the best visual programming languages today are awful, and so slow and clunky to use, there is nothing enhancing about them.
They will let you mess with your thermostat, but setting everything up, will waste life, not enhance it.
The visual programming languages that feel like an extension of us, do not exist today.
The road there, is so studded with gold, no one makes it all the way to the end, to the point where they make a program for you.
Instead, they create products that are wanted, that sell well, and focus on getting more customers.
Visual programming languages are just really awesome, they donāt just fix problems that people have, but they open gateways.
Let me show you a gateway, let me show you the size, of those things.
Today, you can talk to AI, and it will give you excellent response back, but that is silly, it is like getting a piece of paper with text on it.
Again, times are changing, words are changing, interfacing with computers is changing.
In the context of a visual programming language, AI becomes more powerful, more focused, more useful.
You tell it to program you a node, that does some thing you need.
And now you have a reusable tool, that you can use in all your programs.
A tool that will help you create more nodes, more modules, that will get you inspired to program more, and learn more about programming.
This will allow you to perform, the following.
You ask the AI for a list of animals with large cute eyes, you sent that list through some text processing for creating graphics.
And send the text requests to an AI that makes images, and now you route those imagesā¦
Through a node that uploads it to your store, as mugs, t-shirts, and wall art.
Once you have the nodes, you can automate.
Do you understand now, you become cybernetically enhanced.
You can make products for sale, setup a membership based clip-art website for downloads.
But what that actually is, is the result of the visual programming language enhancing you.
I hope you understand that living without your programming language, is almost like a handicap, stuff is denied to you.
Not being able to program the world around you, is like having a mode of expression taken away from you.
Even if you canāt find a visual programming language that fits you, I think all of this is enough, to convince you, to start taking some programming tutorials.
Donāt learn programming to get a job, learn programming, not to need one.
Maybe you will create the Free and Open Visual Programming Languages, that everyone will end up using, and perceiving as their cybernetic enhancements.