Historically (1984) a group of researchers at Hiroshima University, Japan, considered how to bridge the chasm between high level programming languages and the human level by introducing a purely graphical language (called visual) which would be able to express both data and control structures so that real programs could be drawn. This basic idea stemmed from a natural extension of the direct manipulation interface where icons are selected, dragged and placed near/on top of other icons so as to express actions that may entail processes of variable complexity. A number of meetings, round tables and discussions went on during about ten years where a variety of solutions, prototype languages and formalizations that tried to implement possible visual languages were suggested. Nevertheless, after noting that no new paradigm was discovered (in fact a visual language may well exhibit a number of paradigms) an integrated approach (figures plus text) was next suggested so as to solve many problems of detail, of accuracy as well as avoiding ambiguities in icon interpretation. In fact, some authors also claim that no complete language may be wholly based on figures, icons, pictures.
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