Depending on the use, I think it can be fantastic.
Jetbrains makes an editor called MPS that is used to make DSLs and you can include things like tables and diagrams into the code. In places where you have very specific requirements and structure, it can help experts in the domain produce the logic for it. That's the same with level editing, level editors need good creativity and views of spaces not experts in C++, so a DSL and graphical editing is great, because it lets them focus on something else.
That said, when it comes to the code behind things, text gives you an immense amount of expressibility that can't be replicated very well with graphical things. It's the same reason why a lot of developers prefer the command line to graphical configuration; you get far more expression for your expertise in a text environment. You get every combination of letters/symbols on the keyboard entered through a large physical interface; using the mouse to click on things feels slow by comparison.
What you say is true. Text is way more expressive, but sometimes it is difficult to spot the overall code structure just by using text. What Statebox does is this: It implements Petri nets as categories and maps them functorially to a "normal" functional programming semantics. What this means is that:
- You draw the structure of your code in a behavior-oriented way using petri nets. This step is completely visual.
- You use a ton of formal tools to verify that this net has nice properties.
- You map places and transitions of the net to datatypes and functions, respectively.
You see that in this approach nets serve the purpose of giving an high-level understanding of how the code behaves. You still have the freedom that you get by using text in filling the net with meaning, but you gain also this high-level overview that saves a ton of work!
It is certainly true that keyboard input can be much quicker when what you're trying to convey to the machine is logical rather than spatial/kinetic information. But it is entirely possible to use keyboard input to manipulate a graph instead of an array of characters.
Jetbrains makes an editor called MPS that is used to make DSLs and you can include things like tables and diagrams into the code. In places where you have very specific requirements and structure, it can help experts in the domain produce the logic for it. That's the same with level editing, level editors need good creativity and views of spaces not experts in C++, so a DSL and graphical editing is great, because it lets them focus on something else.
That said, when it comes to the code behind things, text gives you an immense amount of expressibility that can't be replicated very well with graphical things. It's the same reason why a lot of developers prefer the command line to graphical configuration; you get far more expression for your expertise in a text environment. You get every combination of letters/symbols on the keyboard entered through a large physical interface; using the mouse to click on things feels slow by comparison.