Visual programming - toward realization of user-friendly programming environments

Programming is generally considered to be a complicated and time-consuming task even for professionals. This comes mostly from the unfriendliness of the programming environment. One of the possible ways to overcome this problem is by the utilization of visual information in programming. In this paper, we first observe some trials toward realization of user-friendly programming, and then give an outline of an iconic programming environment, HI-VISUAL, which the authors are now developing. In HI-VISUAL, objects dealt with by the system, such as data and programs are represented in terms of icons. Programming is carried out simply by arranging icons on the display. The system displays intermediate results of execution in the course of program development so that the user can proceed program development interactively. In addition to this interaction facility for programming, program development based on the top-down approach is also provided for programming in the large. Details of the program modules can be left unspecified until they become clear in the lower level of module hierarchy. Some computer displayed pictures are given for ease of understanding interactions between the user and the system.