Comments on: Chris Anderson hates graphical programming

By: Kerry Carlwrinkle

Kerry Carlwrinkle — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 01:18:54 +0000

I’ve done a lot of searching on google for this type of content. Glad I finally found this site! Great work.

By: carlos

carlos — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 12:12:41 +0000

very well, labview… great if it would work, at least the version that came with my nxt was full of bugs, that would have been easy to fix. The main bug was that when trying to create a complex program the labview would block and crash, it looked as if the graphical elements were using too much heap memory, although i do not know the actual answer. I never had those problems using java or c, and there are very good libraries in both languages for the nxt. Also when you restrict yourself to a program to create code, instead to a language, you are in the hands of the developer, i mean that if you want to incorporate another element (such as a web cam) you have to hope that the guys from labview have created an element for that purpose, again.. using java you can just browse the internet for a new library.

By: Pavan B

Pavan B — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:42:01 +0000

There’s something to be said about text languages and their ease in scripting and other areas. I believe there’s a place for both and lean towards Chris’ viewpoint.

By: Adrian

Adrian — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 22:42:32 +0000

I really belive in graphical programming, it’s a topic but what said our grandparents (or parents depending on age) about Beatles? (NOISE!!!)
As electronic engineer I really belive in machine code programming because the programmer must be the MASTER controlling all the bits of the chip this is the extreme, but as the article says, NXT is a toy and I don’t find any structure or compile problems on the graphical programming philosophy.

By: LabVIEW for MINDSTORMS book in the works at VI Shots

LabVIEW for MINDSTORMS book in the works at VI Shots — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:40:19 +0000

[...] Chris Anderson hates graphical programming [...]

By: Chris Anderson

Chris Anderson — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 10:41:14 +0000

Michael,

Thanks for the post, and I do understand your perspective. We still use NXT-G for most of the younger kids, but at a certain age (around 10) it’s time to teach them text programming, and RobotC, since it works so well with NXT, is a great introduction. We have the LavView student edition, but to be honest I thought it was more complicated and harder to use than RobotC, so I decided to take the older kids straight into text programming.

I’m a NXT developer and know what’s coming up for NXT-G, which will improve it considerably, so it will retain a place in our house. But please understand that one size language doesn’t fit all kids, and what’s right for a nine year old isn’t necessarily right for an eleven year old (or their dads).

Best,

Chris