Visual Programming Languages: A Perspective and a Dimensional Analysis

In the last few years, the rapid decline of computing costs, coupled with the sharp increase of personal computers and “canned” software, has expanded dramatically the population of the computer user community. More and more people today are using computers. However, to many people, the usefulness of a computer is bounded by the usefulness of the canned application software available for the computer. Application programs written for a mass audience seldom give every user all the capabilities that he/she needs. Those who wish to use the computer to do something beyond the capabilities of the canned programs discover that they have to “program.”