Programming in a data factory

Among the advantages of visual dataflow programming is that it can give the user a sense of location for the data in a computation. This can help novices build a mental picture of a program and its execution. This paper presents an experimental programming system called the data factory that uses a manufacturing metaphor to give data an even stronger sense of place. A key affordance for learners is the explicit display of every data object as it moves through a factory. The system provides facilities for handling streams of data and parallel operations, as well as basic operations on numerical values. The data factory supports low-level computations that might be studied by novices, but it also offers novel constructs that might invite the attention of others.