Visual programming applications?

[Jorophose]

Hi,

I've always wanted to program stuff, but sadly I have no skills whatsoever in remembering things as basic as CSS/XHTML, let alone try and remember C/++ or Java, Perl, Python, Ruby, etc.

I wanted to know; is there a "visual" progamming application?

I know it's sad :P, but I want something that I can use to "draw" a program, and make it work by progamming it visually. No code typing or anything. I want to do this so that I can study how to do certain things, like that

main()
{
  printf("hello, world\n");
}

this is the Hello, World code for C.

I was considering Trolltech's QT, but the licensing prices are just too high for me (Unless they'll give discounts for students )

And if such an application doesn't exist, is there a programming language out there that is human-readable? A lot of C/++/Java/etc. stuff looks really complicated and too unreadable. Of course, this is coming from someone who spends a lot of time with CSS/XHTML (And yes, I know they aren't programming languages ;P) so yeah I don't generally use anything for purposes other than displaying static information.

Another thing while I'm at it; I've always wanted to develop my own game, but I wanted to know; is there a sort of, erm, builder-style sim slash RPG slash adventure game out there? Where you control one character, and attempt to expand you assets and such by going on quests and stuff, explore, etc. So I guess that makes it a cross between Pokemon, Harvest Moon, and Kingdom of Loathing. Weird. o_O. If you know one that has the engine GPL'ed, that would be wonderful to mention.

[blobfish]

Re: Visual programming applications?

There are a lot of visual tools to assist programming, but you are not going to get away from code anytime soon. QT has an open source license and if you are on linux you can certainly program anything you want while learning. The licensing only comes in when you start distributing your programs. I was using KDevelop and it seemed like it was trying to be everything to everyone and quite successfully. It just seemed a little overwhelming for me. I would suggest looking at QDevelop that is made specifically for QT4. Coding is a long journey, but well worth it. Just make your first attempts very simple and build from there.

[Pizzarth]

Re: Visual programming applications?

well I havent heard about anything like that for the computer, but for lego mindstorms there is a visual programming tool which uses blocks, arrows I believe, and other containers in a grid that create a program visually. Programming robots could be fun for you :P. problem is that it's expensive. they might give the program for free, not sure. check it out, but you should really learn programming :P. I think java's a good place to start

[calnerd]

Re: Visual programming applications?

National Instruments has a program called LabVIEW that is a GUI programming language. It's really geared for instrument control for manufacturing and I don't know if they have a Linux version but it's also very expensive. Agilent has a program called VEE that is similar and same story. Bottom line as far as I know is that if you want someone else to write the code and you just draw pictures to make things happen, they're probably going to charge you a lot of money. Grab a tutorial and go for it!

[Fenyx]

Re: Visual programming applications?

There are a lot of visual tools to assist programming, but you are not going to get away from code anytime soon. QT has an open source license and if you are on linux you can certainly program anything you want while learning. The licensing only comes in when you start distributing your programs. I was using KDevelop and it seemed like it was trying to be everything to everyone and quite successfully. It just seemed a little overwhelming for me. I would suggest looking at QDevelop that is made specifically for QT4. Coding is a long journey, but well worth it. Just make your first attempts very simple and build from there.

The Open Source version of Qt is actually free, even if you distribute it. Remember that KDE uses it and all KDE-supporting distributions distribute it. The only requirement is that your app/code will be open source as well. You only pay the commercial fee if you use Qt in closed source apps.

@Jorophose: What you really need to decide on, and what is probably most important, is what GUI Toolkit you want to use. There are many toolkits available, and most of them are either C++ based (Qt, wxWidgets, FLTK) or support C++ in some way (like GTK+ with gtkmm).

IMHO, whatever toolkit, IDE, or language you choose, you will, in the end, still have to learn the language, if you really want to be good at it and do better work. "Drag & Drop" will only get you up to a certain level.

As for WYSIWYG tools you can use on KDE, KDevelop and Qt Designer (which KDevelop also uses) is available from the repositories. It's the first time I've heard of QDevelop (thanks tanderson!) so it might be good to take a look at it too.

Btw, here'e the complete equivalent C++ code for what you wrote above:

#include <iostream>

using std::cout;
using std::endl;

int main()
{
  cout << "Hello, world!\n" << endl;

 return 0;
}

[Jorophose]

Re: Visual programming applications?

I'm never going to be able to abandon real coding, but Drag 'n Drop helps out by giving you examples to learn from, which is great.

So the Free QT is also free? I might try GTK+ too just to see what it's like.

One thing I don't like about Java, even though the cross-platform ability is wonderful: It seems almost every application using Java just looks... weird. If you use LimeWire/FrostWire, you'll see what I mean; it just doesn't fit in with anything, except maybe Java Desktop.

[blobfish]

Re: Visual programming applications?

As for WYSIWYG tools you can use on KDE, KDevelop and Qt Designer (which KDevelop also uses) is available from the repositories. It's the first time I've heard of QDevelop (thanks tanderson!) so it might be good to take a look at it too.

Your welcome. QDevelop is a young project, but seems noob friendly.