Combining programming languages and direct manipulation in environments for computational science
Eric Blough, Michael Eisenberg · 1995
Creating computational environments for scientists presents an unusual challenge to software designers.Computational scientists have the skills and motivation to explore models via programming, yet also have highly-developed qualitative visual skills (e.g., interpretation of plots).Unfortunately, software designers have traditionally considered programming and point-and-click interfaces to be mutually exclusive.We propose instead that the most expressive computational environments for scientists are those in which programming and direct manipulation are both present, each supplementing the other.We present several broad themes of interfacelanguage integration.illustrating them with three prototype applications that we arc developing to support specific research areas of computational science; and we extend these themes into promising paths for future exploration.