I don’t think hybrid or non-textual methods have really been given their due or worked on so much, simply because the only-text sentiment is so pervasive.
I’m not proposing punch cards as effective. It was just a simple comparative example, which I thought was clear and that the rest of my post clarified what I actually meant.
> Are we communicating, right now, via animation or fancy PowerPoint slides?
It’s ironic you bring this up, because I don’t find this method particularly effective.
> I don’t think hybrid or non-textual methods have really been given their due or worked on so much,
The problem is that they really have. Visual thinkers in academia have been aggressively pursuing this in CS PhDs and research since the 80s or even 70s.
The results haven't been great. Visual programming works well for some limited cases. Rational Rose, which produces code from UML diagrams, came out in 1994 and has been in continuous development since, has not taken over the world.
The big problem is high information density. With text you can go through it in a linear fashion, even if it's very long. Diagrams tend to hit a breaking point where they're too complex to take in. There's no clear place to start. Then suddenly they are worthless.
I’m not proposing punch cards as effective. It was just a simple comparative example, which I thought was clear and that the rest of my post clarified what I actually meant.
> Are we communicating, right now, via animation or fancy PowerPoint slides?
It’s ironic you bring this up, because I don’t find this method particularly effective.