visual programming language an implementation of a hello world program in the scratch programming language in computing a visual programming language vpl is any programming language that lets users create programs by manipulating program elements graphically rather than by specifying them textually are based on the idea of boxes and arrows where boxes or other screen objects are treated as entities connected by arrows lines or arcs which represent relations definition vpls may be further classified according to the type and extent of visual expression used into iconbased languages formbased languages and diagram languages visual programming environments graphical or iconic elements which can be manipulated by users in an interactive way according to some specific spatial grammar for program construction the general goal of vpls is to make programming more accessible to novices and to support programmers at three different levels syntax vpls use iconsblocks forms and diagrams trying to reduce or even to completely eliminate the potential of syntactic errors helping with the arrangement of programming primitives to create wellformed programs non vpls examples would be spell check in word processors underlining or even auto correcting individual words or grammar semantics vpls may provide some mechanisms to disclose the meaning of programming primitives this could include help functions providing documentation functions builtin to programming languages pragmatics vpls support the study of what programs mean in particular situations this level of support allows users to put artifacts created with a vpl into a certain state in order to explore how the program would react to that state examples in agentsheets or agentcubes users can set games or simulations into a particular state in order to see how program would react with the thymio programming language users can bring a robot into a certain state in order to see how it will react ie which sensors will be activated a visually transformed language is a nonvisual language with a superimposed visual representation naturally visual languages have an inherent visual expression for which there is no obvious textual equivalent current developments try to integrate the visual programming approach with dataflow programming languages to either have immediate access to the program state resulting in online debugging or automatic program generation and documentation dataflow languages also allow automatic parallelization which is likely to become one of the greatest programming challenges of the future the visual languages visual basic visual c visual j etc of the microsoft visual studio ide are not visual programming languages all of these languages are textual and not graphical the ms visual studio is a visual programming environment parsers for visual programming languages can be implemented using graph grammars list of visual languages this is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness you can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries the following contains a list of notable visual programming languages educational agentcubes 3d and 2d game design and simulation design computational thinking tools agentsheets game authoring and computational science authoring tool alice an object based language used to program 3d environments app inventor for android a tool for creating android applications based on blockly and kawa bubble for creating productionready web applications etoys for scripting flowgorithm creates executable flowcharts which can be converted to several languages hopscotch an ipad app and visual programming language for creating touchscreenoriented mobile applications kodu a visual programming tool for logo kojo a programming language ide and learning environment mblock an extension of scratch for arduino hardware interfaces developed by makeblock open roberta online programming environment from fraunhofer iais designed for children raptor a product of the usaf for drawing executable flowcharts scratch a product of mit designed for children in k12 and afterschool programs snap a browserbased reimplementation of byob and extension of scratch with first class procedures and lists used for teaching at uc berkeley stagecast creator formerly apples cocoa internet authoring for kids starlogo an agentbased simulation language developed by mitchel resnick eric klopfer and others at mit media lab an extension of the logo programming language a dialect of lisp toontalk programming system for children visual logic for creating executable flowcharts multimedia audiomulch an audio signal flow based sound and music creation environment blender software the open source 3d graphics package includes a node editor to create shading programs as graphs also custom nodes allows create systems as sverchok blendgraph or other cameleon graphical functional language clickteams the games factorymultimedia fusion series environments made for visually developing games autodesk dynamo a generative modeling interface for revit filter forge node based filter generation for image processing grasshopper 3d a generative modeling interface for rhinoceros 3d kyma sound design language a visual programming language for sound design used by musicians researchers and sound designers mama software a programming language and ide for building 3d animations and games max software visual programming environment for building interactive realtime music and multimedia applications maxmsp pure data nato0553d nodal a nodebased generative programming software application for music composition nuke a nodebased visual programming software for visual effects compositing by the foundry powered by tcl python and blinkscript openmusic a visual programming language for music composition based on common lisp object system clos applications and mobile applications pure data pd is a visual programming language developed for creating interactive computer music and multimedia works quartz composer a language for processing and rendering graphical data macos reaktor a dsp and midiprocessing language by native instruments scala multimedia authoring suite and complete multimedia system for amigaos and windows softimagewith ice interactive creative environment synthedit a synthesizer construction tool using a vpl touchdesigner visual programming language for realtime multimedia content virtools a middleware used to create interactive 3d experiences wirefusion visual programming environment for creating interactive 3d web presentations vsxu music visual realtime 3d graphics generation windows gnulinux and macos video games blender game engine graphical logic editor construct 2 is an html5based 2d game editor developed by scirra ltd construct classic is the previous directxbased opensourced version of construct cryengine has a nodebased visual programming language called flowgraph gamemaker studio has a drag and drop game creation system developed by yoyo games gamesalad is a visual game creation tool developed by gamesalad inc godot inhouse open source mit licensed game development software made by okam studio human resource machine is a visual programmingbased puzzle game developed by tomorrow corporation kodu a software designed to program games with a 3d interface developed by microsoft research rec room includes a game creation system with a nodebased visual programming language called circuits snowdrop has a visual scripting system stencyl a video game creation tool unity has an editor extension on the unity asset store called playmaker made by hutong games unreal engine 4 has a nodebased visual programming language called blueprints verge3d includes puzzles a visual programming environment for creating interactive 3d experiences running on websites many modern video games make use of behavior trees which are in principle a family of simple programming languages designed to model behaviors for nonplayer characters the behaviors are modeled as trees and are often edited in graphical editors systems simulation analytica a commercial visual language for decision models based on influence diagrams drakon a graphical algorithmic language eicaslab a software suite including a graphical language for supporting the design of control architectures flowcode is a graphical programming language to program embedded microprocessors function block diagrams used in programmable logic controllers gnu radio a development toolkit which provides signalprocessing blocks to implement softwaredefinedradios and signalprocessing systems knime the konstanz information miner is an open source data analytics reporting and integration platform labview a graphical language designed for engineers and scientists ladder logic a language that simulates relay logic commonly used in programmable logic controllers mevislab crossplatform application framework for medical image processing and scientific visualization microsoft visual programming language dataflow language for robotics programming that is a component of microsoft robotics studio mindrover a robot programming game incorporating a dataflow wiring language minibloq visual programming language for robotics and arduino compatible boards mst workshop an interactive visual programming language for creating mathematical solutions rapid prototyping twodimensional and threedimensional graphic applications nodered software system rapid development toolkit nxtg a visual programming language for the lego mindstorms nxt robotics kit opendx scientific data visualization using a visual programming language and data flow model openwire adds visual dataflow programming abilities to delphi via visual component library vcl components and a graphical editor homonymous binary protocol is unrelated orange an opensource visual programming tool for data mining statistical data analysis and machine learning outsystems language a visual modeling language to develop and change all layers of business centric web applications prograph ptolemy qucs graphical interface to set up simulation of electronic circuit signal and noise behavior reallusion iclone a 3d software with lua language and visual programing design robo pro a visual programming language for the fischertechnik robotics kit scicos a graphical language associated with the numerical analysis package scicoslab originally scilab simulink sequential function chart a petrinet like programming language for programmable logic controllers stella a vpl for system dynamics modeling softimage ice a nodebased system that is used to create and modify 3d models simulate particles and perform various other tasks vee vissim modeling and simulation language allows making mathematical models quickly and executing them in realtime automation automator cimple visual programming language by thinklabs for teaching robotics flow a graphical integration language used in the webmethods platform pipeline pilot is a scientific visual and dataflow programming language and the authoring tool for the accelrys enterprise platform data warehousing business intelligence ab initio a tool for etl processing by creating graphs alteryx designer a tool for data processing and analytics incorporating sql r and python ibm cognos business intelligence is an example for frontend programs in business intelligence applications which are used to generate sql queries to run against rdbms databases ibm infosphere datastage an etl tool informatica powercenter is an etl tool to design mappings graphically for data load in data warehouse systems microsoft sql server integration services ssis a platform for data integration and workflow applications pentaho data integration pdi formerly named kettle an opensource etl tool talend open studio for data integration an opensource etl tool miscellaneous kwikpoint an isotype visual translator created by alan stillman lava an experimental object oriented rad language limnor a general purpose programming system limnor studio is an ide for rapid software development morphic software makes it easier to build and edit graphical objects by direct manipulation and from within programs the whole self programming language programming environment is built using morphic streambase systems streambase eventflow is a visual programming language for processing streaming events tersus an open source platform for the development of rich web applications by visually defining user interface client side behavior and server side processing webml is a visual language for designing complex dataintensive web applications that can be automatically generated yahoo pipes is a visual dataflow programming system to process web data yawl graphical workflow language legacy appware also known as microbrew icon based programming for classic mac os and microsoft windows macromedia authorware flowchart based programming language helix and double helix a pioneering database management system for the apple macintosh platform created in 1983 illumination software creator a language and ide for visually creating desktop and mobile software thinglab visual styles drakon dragon a sdl and aadlinfluenced visual 2d programming language designed for developing the onboard hard realtime software system for automatic flight and landing of the sovietrussian buran snowstorm orbiting spacecraft executable uml a profile of the universal modeling language specification defining executable semantics for a subset of uml flowchart subtext argument map cognitive dimensions of notations notation assessment for visual and nonvisual languages concept map dataflow programming deutsch limit an adage about the information density of language primitives in a visual notation domainspecific modeling drag and drop drakonchart flowbased programming graph drawing hiasm lowcode development platforms unified modeling language visual language visual thinking widget workshop programming game this article was originally based on material from the free online dictionary of computing used with permission update as needed visual programming languages at curlie visual programming languages snapshots vtetypes of programming languages actorbased array aspectoriented classbased concatenative concurrent dataflow declarative domainspecific dynamic esoteric eventdriven extensible functional imperative logic macro metaprogramming multiparadigm objectbased objectoriented pipeline procedural prototypebased reflective rulebased scripting stack based synchronous templating assembly compiled interpreted machine lowlevel highlevel very highlevel first generation second generation third generation fourth generation fifth generation nonenglishbased visual 