Washington University in St.

Louis
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All Computer Science and Engineering Computer Science and Engineering

Research

Report Number: WUCS-86-06

1986-06-01

A Visual Language for Keyboardless Programming

Takayuki Dan Kimura, Julie W. Choi, and Jane M. Mack

A visual language Show and Tell is introduced as a programming language for home
information systems, integrating the computer capabilities of managing computation,
communications, and database. It is shown that keyboardless programming is possible with
Show and Tell. The language is implemented on the Apple Macintosh personal computer. The
semantic model of the language is based on the concepts of dataflow and completion. A Show
and Tell program is a partially ordered set of nested boxes and arrows. Traditional programming
constructs such as subroutine, iteration, record structure recursion, exception, concurrency and
so forth, are represented by two-dimensional graphical structures... Read complete abstract on
page 2.

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Recommended Citation
Kimura, Takayuki Dan; Choi, Julie W.; and Mack, Jane M., "A Visual Language for Keyboardless
Programming" Report Number: WUCS-86-06 (1986). All Computer Science and Engineering Research.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cse_research/841

Department of Computer Science & Engineering - Washington University in St. Louis

Campus Box 1045 - St. Louis, MO - 63130 - ph: (314) 935-6160.
 This technical report is available at Washington University Open Scholarship: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/
cse_research/841
A Visual Language for Keyboardless Programming

Takayuki Dan Kimura, Julie W. Choi, and Jane M. Mack

Complete Abstract:

A visual language Show and Tell is introduced as a programming language for home information
systems, integrating the computer capabilities of managing computation, communications, and
database. It is shown that keyboardless programming is possible with Show and Tell. The language is
implemented on the Apple Macintosh personal computer. The semantic model of the language is based
on the concepts of dataflow and completion. A Show and Tell program is a partially ordered set of nested
boxes and arrows. Traditional programming constructs such as subroutine, iteration, record structure
recursion, exception, concurrency and so forth, are represented by two-dimensional graphical structures
of boxes and arrows. The design philosophy, conceptual model, syntax, and semantics of major language
constructs are described. Various research problems in the visual programming area are discussed.