{"title":"Visual programming in a distributed environment","authors":"F. Capobianco, M. Mosconi","doi":"10.1109/VL.1998.706144","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/VL.1998.706144","url":null,"abstract":"This paper discusses the possibility of using a visual programming environment to build distributed applications. We refer to a running system developed at the University of Pavia and deal with the distribution of data, programs and executions. Within the D-VIPERS programming environment, which is based on the data-flow paradigm, data can be stored locally or in a remote machine and can be accessed by means of special blocks via TCP/IP (a block is a node in the data-flow graph). The blocks themselves can be stored locally or in a remote machine: a proper daemon manages the dynamic loading of remote block libraries, allowing a number of cooperating working units to develop and maintain different routines on their own machines and make them available for the other units. Moreover, the user can program blocks to be executed locally or on a more suitable remote machine.","PeriodicalId":185794,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings. 1998 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages (Cat. No.98TB100254)","volume":"50 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126822294","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Graphical rewrite rule analogies: avoiding the inherit or copy and paste reuse dilemma","authors":"C. Perrone, A. Repenning","doi":"10.1109/VL.1998.706132","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/VL.1998.706132","url":null,"abstract":"Reuse mechanisms, such as inheritance in an object oriented programming approach, are useful to professional programmers but fail to support the occasional programming needs of the end user. Consequently, a surprisingly high percentage of end users resort to \"copy and paste\" approaches for reuse instead of making appropriate use of object oriented techniques. Visual analogies are a reuse mechanism for end users who otherwise would have resorted to \"copy and paste\". The paper illustrates how visual analogies avoid some of the problems intrinsic to object oriented programming by eliminating the pitfall of over-generalization and the need to create non concrete programming abstractions.","PeriodicalId":185794,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings. 1998 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages (Cat. No.98TB100254)","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123815841","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"VIPspace-a visually programmable shared workspace","authors":"Marita Dücker, Wolfgang Müller, J. Rubart","doi":"10.1109/VL.1998.706150","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/VL.1998.706150","url":null,"abstract":"With the wide availability of network supporting hard-and software cooperative computer-based environments became extremely popular. A wide range of CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work) tools with video conferencing, electronic mail, shared whiteboards, discussion forums, and shared information systems are already part of daily business. In contrast to the unstructured linear stream of information in electronic mails shared workspaces provide structured administration of electronic information like documents, voice, pictures, and movies. Popular examples of shared workspaces are BSCW (Basic Support for Cooperative Work), Hypernews, Lotus Notes, Alta Vista Forum, Lifelink, Microsoft Exchange and Webshare. Currently, all these systems are not flexible enough to get easily customized to the requirements of the individual application and user only supporting a limited set of predefined different views and functionality. This article introduces VIPspace (Visually Programmable Workspace). VIPspace can be easily customized to the individual needs of an user through VIPrule, a combination of a form- and icon-based visual programming language. VIPrule is based on an easy-to-use drag and drop paradigm. Direct manipulation via drag and drop allows easy access to local file systems as well as manipulation, exchange, and publication of shared multimedia documents. As VIPspace is implemented in Java it nicely integrates with other web-applications and provides a platform independent environment with a uniform graphical user interface.","PeriodicalId":185794,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings. 1998 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages (Cat. No.98TB100254)","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129779182","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On the design of a generic visual programming environment","authors":"Da-Qian Zhang, Kang Zhang","doi":"10.1109/VL.1998.706147","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/VL.1998.706147","url":null,"abstract":"Visual programming languages (VPLs) are usually embedded and tightly integrated within visual environments so that they are often characterised by the attributes of the environments. The creation of a VPL is, therefore, concerned with the creation of its visual programming environment (VPE). The graphical requirements of a visual programming environment include defining the visual elements of the language and the graphical relationships that must be maintained when these elements are connected together. Algorithms must be provided for graphically editing these elements while maintaining their graphical relationships. The underlying data structures are complex, containing information about visual representation, logical connectivity, domain knowledge, etc. It is difficult to parse an edited diagram with a general parsing algorithm. Any solution to solving the data structure problem tends to be so specialised that it applies only to a single visual language. The generation of every new visual language requires a re-development of the whole machinery. To avoid such re-development, we need to find a proper representation of the data structure and a generic model, which are able to decouple the components of a visual programming environment. Our approach is to view a target or domain-oriented VPE as a specific instance of a generic VPE such that the techniques applicable to the generic VPE can also apply to a target VPE and functionalities common to VPEs need not be re-developed. This paper addresses the issues in a design model that supports the development of a VPE by dividing the whole development process into several independent functional modules.","PeriodicalId":185794,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings. 1998 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages (Cat. No.98TB100254)","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115702066","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Iconic system with extension mechanism","authors":"S. Yamaguchi, Minoru Tanaka, S. Morita","doi":"10.1109/VL.1998.706161","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/VL.1998.706161","url":null,"abstract":"Iconic systems that function as if a display screen is a workspace in the real world have recently been proposed. Specification of an iconic system consists of an icon set and a rule set. However, specification of an iconic system for an application environment changes in accordance with the progress of the environment. We present a mechanism for extending iconic systems, and propose PROGRESS, an iconic system with the extension mechanism. In PROGRESS, the extension mechanism makes it possible to adapt the icon set and the rule set to the progress of the environment. The mechanism also makes specification more understandable by illustrating the iconic system with a directed graph. Extension is carried out visually by modifying the graph. Test results showed that the graphical extension mechanism reduced the occurrence of errors and the extension time. We conclude that the extendibility of PROGRESS is superior to other existing iconic systems.","PeriodicalId":185794,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings. 1998 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages (Cat. No.98TB100254)","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131536119","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Optimizing cut-and-paste on directed graphs, with a user-controlled edge reconstruction strategy","authors":"B. Ibrahim","doi":"10.1109/VL.1998.706148","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/VL.1998.706148","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, we present a strategy for implementing select copy, cut and paste editing primitives for a directed graph-based visual formalism. This strategy focuses on minimizing the user interactions while keeping the user in control of how edges are disconnected and reconnected during cut and paste operations. To achieve this, we introduce a classification of the nodes belonging to the selection based on whether the edges connecting them with the rest of the graph are selected or not. This classification influences the reconnection process when the selection is either cut or pasted. The simplicity of the criteria used for the classification greatly helps in the predictability, for the user, of the result of cut and paste operations.","PeriodicalId":185794,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings. 1998 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages (Cat. No.98TB100254)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130613072","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
C. Rader, G. Cherry, C. Brand, A. Repenning, C. Lewis
{"title":"Designing mixed textual and iconic programming languages for novice users","authors":"C. Rader, G. Cherry, C. Brand, A. Repenning, C. Lewis","doi":"10.1109/VL.1998.706162","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/VL.1998.706162","url":null,"abstract":"Designing programming languages that are accessible to elementary school children is a complex task. Programming languages that contain visual elements provide a good starting point, because they are inherently appealing to many children. As novice users, however, children require additional support to use programming languages effectively. In this paper, we describe five principles for designing end-user programming languages which address some of the obstacles we have observed when students attempt to create sophisticated programs. The principles are based on extensions we have made to Visual AgentTalk, the tactile programming component of the Agentsheets system. Although our research has centered on children, we believe that the discussion may be widely applicable to languages for novice users of any age.","PeriodicalId":185794,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings. 1998 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages (Cat. No.98TB100254)","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126867814","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"SAM-an animated 3D programming language","authors":"C. Geiger, Wolfgang Müller, W. Rosenbach","doi":"10.1109/VL.1998.706167","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/VL.1998.706167","url":null,"abstract":"This article presents the animated visual 3D programming language SAM (Solid Agents in Motion) for parallel systems specification and animation. A SAM program is a set of interacting agents synchronously exchanging messages. The agent's behaviour is specified by means of production rules with a condition and a sequence of actions each. Actions are linearly ordered and execute when matching a rule. In SAM, main syntactic objects like agents, rules, and messages are 3D. These objects can have an abstract and a concrete, solid 3D presentation. While the abstract representation is for programming and debugging, the concrete representation is for animated 3D end-user presentations. After outlining the concepts of SAM this article gives two programming examples of 3D micro worlds and an overview of the programming environment.","PeriodicalId":185794,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings. 1998 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages (Cat. No.98TB100254)","volume":"58 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115034619","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A visual development environment for parallel applications","authors":"P. T. Cox, H. Glaser, S. Maclean","doi":"10.1109/VL.1998.706157","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/VL.1998.706157","url":null,"abstract":"We report on the development of a visual programming environment for building applications for execution on a range of parallel computing platforms. This work exploits the dataflow and list processing parallelism naturally exposed in the Prograph language, by providing annotations to indicate that operations can be remotely executed, supported by a task pooling model for parallel execution that preserves the sequential semantics of the language. The goal is a practical system that builds on the comprehensive tools in the Prograph CPX environment in a consistent manner. This will be achieved via high level editors for hardware configurations, annotations and program analysis, and an underlying kernel that implements the pooling model.","PeriodicalId":185794,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings. 1998 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages (Cat. No.98TB100254)","volume":"16 3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127711447","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Object-oriented visual language grammar and its parsing algorithm","authors":"Kyung-An Kim, Kiho Lee","doi":"10.1109/VL.1998.706146","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/VL.1998.706146","url":null,"abstract":"Due to the deficiencies in their ability to define graphical objects, most existing visual language grammars are not easily extended to define a new language. In this paper we propose a formal specification method, the Object-Oriented Visual Language Grammar that allows the language designer to include graphical objects easily at the language specification level. It is a new formalism based on attributed multiset rewriting and the object-oriented paradigm. We also present a parsing algorithm that uses an And-Or-Waiting Graph to formulate dependencies between classes for instantiating objects. Finally, we investigate the theoretical complexity of our parsing algorithm.","PeriodicalId":185794,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings. 1998 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages (Cat. No.98TB100254)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130371595","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}