Name: Flow-based programming
ISBN: 9780442017712

Flow-based programming

Describes a highly productive approach to application development based on "Flow-Based Programming" (FBP), a programming paradigm that has been used sporadically for over 20 years. Most commonly used paradigms focus on generating novel programming code for a given application. FBP focuses on modularizing tasks so they can be fit together and be reused in an infinite variety of ways, yielding a kind of recyclable programming code. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

What Hacker News says

f3lheadhunterJun 2020

Have you looked into Flow Based Programming by J P Morrison?

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ztjioJul 2017

It surprised me just how huge the impact was of reading about Flow-based Programming years ago (J Paul Morrison's book, though, his site is probably a sufficient substitute http://www.jpaulmorrison.com/fbp/)

Of course, in recent times, it has become all that much more relevant to me as I began working in data science/engineering space. Even though it's not specifically about code structure for a particular language, it addresses a common flaw in most programming approaches that seem to treat all functionality as a servant of the current context which is strange and silly and not how anything works in physical information processing so why do it in code?

A somewhat common pattern that maps well to FBP is "Railway Oriented Programming." Though FBP in full takes this well beyond simply shooting errors along in sideband to the happy path.

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nickpsecurityApr 2017

I suggest looking up Paul Morrison's stuff on Flow-based Programming. He's been using it in enterprise a long time.

Also, if looking for glue, check out Wikipedia's list of programming paradigms or types of programming languages. Quite a few including some styles you may have not heard of.

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nickpsecurityNov 2016

Maybe try Morrison's Flow-based Programming. It seems closer to hardware.

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swiftSep 2013

This looks great, and I encourage you to keep working on it and make this a reality. I've thought along the same lines and I think a language like this has real potential.

I'm pretty surprised I haven't seen J. Paul Morrison's "Flow-Based Programming" mentioned anywhere in the post or these comments. I first read this book years ago as a undergrad and it made a big impact on me. It discusses ideas very similar to the ones proposed for Glow. You can read it free online here:

http://www.jpaulmorrison.com/fbp/

You can find links to several existing implementations of flow-based programming on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow-based_programming

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chipsyApr 2013

How you looked at J. Paul Morrison's "Flow Based Programming" book? I recommend it since it touches upon a lot of similar topics. As your article points out, the concatenative style can be visualized as a flow; in the Morrison book flow is expanded upon with a more detailed, explicit connectivity system and an emphasis on visual language.

Regardless of syntax this is a very interesting language design space, since it seems to hold some of the most promise for lowering average software complexity.

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