Question

There are several (many?) programming/design systems where the user constructs a (node-edge) graph to represent the algorithm, and can then run the resulting algorithm to obtain results.

The two examples that I know off the top of my head are

• Simulink
• Pure Data

but I want to look into the general features of this approach for designing a user interface for setting up numerical processing problems, so I need to know some general terms for concisely describing this interface design.

I’m sort of looking for:

• I type in “What programming systems (environments) use an XXX interface” into Google,
  and amongst the answers are Simulink and Pure Data.
• I find the Wikipedia page on XXX user interface and it includes in its list of systems, Simulink and Pure Data.
• Someone wrote an academic paper “AmazingSoftware: an XXX system for modelling ecosystems”, where they constructed a system, with this type of node/edge interface, that allows for modelling population dynamics in some way (I’m not particularly interested in ecology, rather I’d want to find this to understand what they did with respect to the interface itself).

Answer 1

Pure Data is generally described as “real-time graphical dataflow programming”, so there are three key words there:

• real-time: its a real-time system, so there is a built in sense of time and concurrency, and “guarantees” a response within strict time constraints
• graphical: the programming is performed and represented graphically rather than text or punch cards or whatever (this could also be labeled visual)
• dataflow: the programming logic is based on the flow of the data, versus object-oriented or procedural

My guess is that you are most interested in the graphical/visual part of that.