Node editor

Also called box-and-wire programming visual/graphical programming.

Usual advantages of node editors

Node editors usually enforce referential transparency, purity, statelessness.
just like in purely functional programming languages. With the same benefits.
Most notably is mathematical refactorability of code.
As is Substitutability. Easy factoring out of code duplication.

Usual problems with node editors

The "wire-kraken" problem

Lack of ability to hide complexity.
Some older node editors even lack the ability for user-defined functions as sub-node-graphs.
Beyond mere grouping of nodes. Many node editors support that now.
Though it's usually an all or nothing for hiding the immediate surrounding computational call context.

This problem is aggravated by an other usual problem of node editors of the past.
The limited expressiveness problem. As workarounds to this problem tend to significantly increase complexity.

Limited expressiveness

Some problems are hard to model in most existing node editors. Why?

As node editors usually share the referential transparency property with
purely functional languages they face similar challenges.

Purely functional languages usually (with few exceptions) make up for the absence of recursive mutability
in part by supporting higher order functions.
I.e. functions that take functions as arguments and or give functions as return type.
(callbacks, continuation passing style, functional reactive programming, and simpler things)
Recursion packaged in names of what they do structurally replaces for loops (map, fpold, scan, zipWith, …)
Preferably tail call recursion.

Unfortunately node editors rarely support (their direly needed) higher order functions
as they often strictly adhere to the "wires are values and boxes are functions" metaphor.

This leads to some strange workaround blossoms.
Taking blender geometry nodes as example:
– a copy of all operations for list/array types (less or more consistent).
– dedicated "simulation nodes" rather than an iterate function

Bad support for code documentation

Node editors often feature bad support for documentation. No way to attach documentation to individual noses in usage context. No way to attach documentation for a node graph as a function without specified context.

Misc:

Sort of meaningless positional information:
Position of nodes/boxes carries no inherent meaning and is just metadata.
Usually arranged for easy readability
– minimizing number of wire crossings
– putting related parts close together
– mimicking the geometry of an actual physical geometry
Or using auto layouting approaches
– force field based (often makes thing less readable)
– auto routing approaches (some heuristics, nowin 2024 AI might help here)
Node/box positions are meaningful for readability and documentation.
Not for code compilation and execution.

Low information density:
Compared to textual code node editors have a rather low
on screen areal information density.

Conflation of function abstraction and function application:
I.e. in node based editors outputs are directly connected to inputs.
This is not the case in annotated lambda diagrams
where flowing a node (with nodegraphinside) through a wire comes more natural.
(TODO: Find out of the consequences of this in more detail.)

Potential Improvements

Provide better support for documentation. Per node and per node-graph.

Make higher order functions first-class-citizens (i.e. treat functions identically to values).
In other words: Make boxes and the wires going out mean the exact same thing.

Beyond custom function definitions:
Support showing visual surrounding call context (super-context & sub context). Inverse tabs for call contexts.
Support showing alternate upstream call contexts too for mind-bicycle-walks through the codebase-graph-multiverse Ideally both in inactive and live-coding context.

Support both in-place-preview and out-of-place previe of For dependency functions that are called in the node graph:
– support in-place-preview. Inverse tabs for call contexts.
– support out-of-place-preview with indicate visual funnels (show memorization sharing)

Use an projectional editing approach with a code AST as core representation.
Ideally per function hash addressed.

(wiki-TODO: Add existing sketches for these ideas. The ones for now merely linked below.)

• https://twitter.com/mechadense/status/1235650692297064448
• https://twitter.com/mechadense/status/1235645491255414789

Related

• Projectional editing
• Purely functional programming
• Annotated lambda diagrams and Annotated lambda diagram mockups and Lambda diagrams

External links

enso (formerly luna):

• https://x.com/enso_org

Historic:

• http://staging.luna-lang.org/
• https://x.com/luna_language
• https://x.com/FlowboxIO
• https://www.youtube.com/user/flowboxIO

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• (wiki-TODO: Find that cool project that combines a node graph with a drawing tool.)

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• PANE experiment (wiki-TODO: add link)

Swapping the meaning of wires and boxes.

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• Blender geometry nodes