obviously not the point of the article but I really appreciate Unreal's visual programming flow.
I think an underrated idea from visual programming is that futzing around with linear files to try and connect a bunch of stuff together is not that fun in an event-based system. Stuff like Scratch unlock the right idea, that code structure is important at a micro level, but at a macro level it's... kind of busy-work, and it's hard to offer good structure in a way that's discoverable.
My main complaint with Unreal blueprints, though, is that sometimes you really do just want to write a bunch of code in a linear sequence. Give me a little textbox to just pop into within my diagram!
I think an underrated idea from visual programming is that futzing around with linear files to try and connect a bunch of stuff together is not that fun in an event-based system. Stuff like Scratch unlock the right idea, that code structure is important at a micro level, but at a macro level it's... kind of busy-work, and it's hard to offer good structure in a way that's discoverable.
My main complaint with Unreal blueprints, though, is that sometimes you really do just want to write a bunch of code in a linear sequence. Give me a little textbox to just pop into within my diagram!