On: Luna – A WYSIWYG language for data processing

[jazzyjackson]

Everything is saved as plaintext, but it is not meant to be readable really. here's an excerpt from some of my code.

  #N canvas 340 73 884 380 10;
  #N canvas 0 0 1362 686 sendchord 0; 
  #X msg 241 135 60;
  #X msg 240 167 64;
  #X msg 241 200 67;
  #X obj 191 173 bng 15 250 50 0 empty empty empty 17 7 0 10 -262144
  -1 -1;
  #X obj 283 450 bng 15 250 50 0 empty empty empty 17 7 0 10 -262144
  -1 -1;

[hjek → jazzyjackson]

Hello world in Pd:

    #N canvas 0 0 100 100 100 10; 
    #X obj 0 40 print;            
    #X msg 0 20 hello world;      
    #X obj 0 0 loadbang;          
    #X connect 1 0 0 0;           
    #X connect 2 0 1 0;           

Compared to Hello World in Java, it's actually not that unreadable IMO.

[viraptor → hjek]

You've got 20 magic integers with no explanation in the source. Java version does not contain that.

[hjek → viraptor]

Yup. Magic integers are bad for readability. So are "magic phrases", like public static void.

I think the readability of Pd is horrible, but the question was whether it was human readable at all.

[viraptor → hjek]

I don't think they're in the similar category at all. Keywords are part of the syntax - if you know what they are in one place, you know what they are in another. (even if they have multiple meanings) Magic numbers are use-specific and you need extra context to understand them. They're part of the code, not the language itself - although the language can help the situation by enforcing naming in some cases.

[hjek → viraptor]

Well, I think many programming keywords have a form of meaning that you need extra context to understand. How would I intuitively could guess what 'public static void' was, withing having any idea about OO or Java? I mean, 'void' is perhaps OK, but don't tell me you could understand 'swing' with no context, just by reading the word?