Abstract
Visual programming languages (VPLs) play a significant role in simplifying the process of learning to program and reducing development time. Most VPLs are developed for use in education or specific domains. Recently, some projects have aimed to provide general-purpose VPLs. Among these projects is the Programming Without Coding Technology (PWCT) project, which has been used for several years to develop and maintain the compiler and virtual machine for the Ring programming language. However, PWCT faces several issues related to code generation performance and the operating systems it supports. Additionally, its visual editor lacks many features, such as rich comments, auto-run, and the ability to import textual code, which are highly important in the era of using large language models for generating textual code. In this research, we present the PWCT2 visual programming language, which is distributed on the Steam platform. On Steam, 1772 users have launched the software, and the total usage time recorded exceeds 17,000 h. This generation provides approximately 36 times faster code generation and 20 times lower storage requirements for visual source files. It also allows for the conversion of Ring code into visual code, enabling the creation of a self-hosting VPL. It consists of approximately 92,000 lines of Ring code and comes with 394 visual components. Moreover, using Ring in this project demonstrates the feasibility of utilizing the language for projects of this scale. Ring compiles PWCT2 in less than one second, and the generated bytecode consists of approximately 724,000 instructions.
Published Version
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