I think the solution is just to stop trying to allow Real Programming in visual languages.
Make the abstractions purely high level, and let people write Python plugins for new blocks with an app store to share them.
Visual can easily provide enough flexibility for gluing blocks together.
IFTT, Excel, and lots of others do it perfectly well.
The issue is programmers like to program. Mostly they like "programming in circles", making little apps to help make more other little apps to explore ideas.
They see it mathematically, as a human centered activity all about understanding, while users see machines as a box you put stuff in to make it not your problem anymore.
They're always talking about empowering users to create their own fully custom ways of using computers... But.... I like apps that have a canned, consistent workflow that I don't have to fuss with or maintain or reinstall.
Software like Excel has the appropriate amount of power for working on a project that uses computers but isn't really related to programming or done by developers.
Make the abstractions purely high level, and let people write Python plugins for new blocks with an app store to share them.
Visual can easily provide enough flexibility for gluing blocks together.
IFTT, Excel, and lots of others do it perfectly well.
The issue is programmers like to program. Mostly they like "programming in circles", making little apps to help make more other little apps to explore ideas.
They see it mathematically, as a human centered activity all about understanding, while users see machines as a box you put stuff in to make it not your problem anymore.
They're always talking about empowering users to create their own fully custom ways of using computers... But.... I like apps that have a canned, consistent workflow that I don't have to fuss with or maintain or reinstall.
Software like Excel has the appropriate amount of power for working on a project that uses computers but isn't really related to programming or done by developers.