Plug — for anyone researching or otherwise interested in visual languages like Luna, I keep a collection of projects, papers, talks, references, and other related media here on Github: <a href="https://github.com/ivanreese/visual-programming-codex" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/ivanreese/visual-programming-codex</a><p>As for Luna, it seems like they've gone quiet for the past while, though I believe they're still hard at work on the project. Hopefully they can improve the stability and performance of the program, because to date I've found it almost unusable.<p>For a similarly interesting project (albeit not visual in the same way), I recommend people also take a look a isomorƒ: <a href="https://isomorf.io" rel="nofollow">https://isomorf.io</a>
Luna looks great. I've been doing work in this area myself and hope to launch my own visual programming environment next month or so: <a href="https://imgur.com/a/zLS1g0t" rel="nofollow">https://imgur.com/a/zLS1g0t</a><p>Unlike Luna though, my own environment does not have a dual-syntax representation. It can import functions from TypeScript though and export them as nodes. I also plan to target build tools rather than data processing.<p>I'm excited to see so much progress being made in this area. Two other examples are NoFlo (<a href="https://noflojs.org/" rel="nofollow">https://noflojs.org/</a>) and Flolab (<a href="http://flowlab.io/" rel="nofollow">http://flowlab.io/</a>).
I have been successfully using Node-RED for quite some time now (<a href="https://nodered.org/" rel="nofollow">https://nodered.org/</a>) :) really like it so far, great tool to quickly add simple and complex health checks to your systems and automate various tasks that no necessarily deserve to have their own services. Kinda like your own FaaS platform (mine runs on an Intel NUC).<p>Luna looks great and I actually think I initially saw it and then I was looking for it but couldn't find it, ending up with Node-RED. I might give it a try, however I didn't see any mentions of how it integrates with Git :/
There are quite a few "boxes and lines" tools out there such as Alteryx, Actian, LabView, KNIME, etc.<p>Many people swear by them.<p>I like that Luna has a text syntax.<p>I also like that Luna supports building graph functional blocks that can be nested inside other graphs. That's a missing link in other tools of this type that limits the scale of what you can do with them.<p>I'd like to see a tool like this which has something like a JSON document going over the lines, but that might be asking too much. If the objects going over the lines are basically relational rows you can do columnar execution at very high speed. The Actian people have looked at alternatives to what they do, but I think they haven't extended the data model past relational because they couldn't get it fast enough to compete with their own product.<p>(e.g. a classic "disruptive technology")
Looks interesting. Then I saw the data collection disclaimer during the install wizard. Deleted it in a instant.<p>You lose many potential clients just for that alone
> Luna is the world’s first programming language featuring two equivalent syntax representations, visual and textual.<p>Is this true? This is not my strong domain but I'm sure there are such programming languages.
Very cool. Makes me think of Bret Victor's work.<p><a href="http://worrydream.com/#!2/LadderOfAbstraction" rel="nofollow">http://worrydream.com/#!2/LadderOfAbstraction</a><p>This is the kind of visual programming I'd be ready to buy into.
>WYSIWYG language<p>Please, let's refrain from such awkward terminology. "Graphic language", "visual language" are fine. "WYSIWYG data processing" is okay. But let's not forget any graphic syntax is an abstraction.
I find the writing style on the site and in the docs to be extremely verbose. My kingdom for some up-front concrete data examples without having to wade through an essay.
Neat! Anyone with more understanding can point out differences with statebox[1]? Both seem to be:<p>- visual and textual<p>- purely functional<p>- dataflow-like<p>I get the feeling that statebox might not be turing complete (guaranteed termination) and have a stronger focus on formal verification. Also, it doesn't seem to have a visual editor yet.<p>[1]: <a href="https://statebox.org/what-is/" rel="nofollow">https://statebox.org/what-is/</a>
I think the question I've always had with these visual languages is if they target user friendliness and ease of use in the hope that non-programmers can use them? Or do they actually think it'll be more productive for professional programmers than text based languages?<p>I think for the latter, it'll be really really difficult to achieve. I can maybe see the former, but I also worry for the former, these are too general, and domain specific graphical tools will always dominate.
this has been posted on HN at least 4 other times in the past three years.<p>still interesting, but i don't do much data science, so will probably never get a chance to use this.
The discord widget that eats part of the screen on mobile is very annoying - besides the fact that another OSS project is using proprietary communications systems.
It would have been a good idea to contact the developers before posting a link to their project, to involve them in the discussion, and allow them to clear up any misunderstandings about their work.