> Visual diagrams are also difficult to search, scan, or replace programmatically.
This. Whenever I investigate a new authoring tool, the first thing I want to know is whether there is a plain text (preferably json) serialization that I could import and export. A particular tool I otherwise love where this is sorely missing is Zapier.
exactly, every picture represents an "equivalence class" of expressions (or code).
I say equivalence class, because the picture represents many formulas: by topologically distorting the picture you get different code. however, they all behave in the same way. 2+3 = 1+4 = 5
This. Whenever I investigate a new authoring tool, the first thing I want to know is whether there is a plain text (preferably json) serialization that I could import and export. A particular tool I otherwise love where this is sorely missing is Zapier.