Grafisk programmering; teori och praktik

In this thesis we investigate how different systems for graphical programming can be implemented,and how they can be analyzed and generalized in theory. We also look into howwe can evaluate whether or not a graphically implemented application is valid. This thesiscompares and analyzes different graphical programming environments, including the UnrealDevelopment Kit 3 material editor, the Xcode [1] storyboard UI editor and the SATIN [2]programming environment.In order to ensure a fail-safe development process, we also investigate how to perform validation.Validation is important because it ensures that the generated application will alwayscompile without any syntactical or type related errors and execute up to its terminationpoint. An application designed with a graphical programming environment must never causeerrors related to ordinary textual programming since it serves to obfuscate and remove thatkind of complexity. Instead, an application designed in this manner must always execute orcompile, although any run-time errors or unwanted behaviors has to be accounted for by thedeveloper. To demonstrate a way to perform validation, we give an in-depth explanation ofSATIN, how node templates are implemented and how they can be tested for validation.A solution for a generic, yet problem specific data-flow environment called Shady, is explained.As a result, this thesis gives an example implementation of Shady which is used todesign real-time GPU shaders, but in comparison to most such environments, it allows us toextend the environment to suit specific needs. Shady is also made to suit many platforms bydefining a system which allows a developer to implement several platform specific solutionsso that Shady may be used to generate code for said platforms. In addition to this, we alsogive an example of how an application such as Shady can be used to generate minimalisticand efficient codeValiderat; 20150116 (global_studentproject_submitter