Pedagogy of Dataflow

by Tuğrul Yazar | November 14, 2011 16:31

Scripting languages have become one of the main environments of generative design since the beginning of the new Millenium. Also as a new research field, design researchers focused on the potentials of this medium. However, this has caused a field dependency on computer programming, as scripting could not be conceptualized by design researchers independent from computer programming paradigms. This leads designers to conflicts of cognitive duality and potential pedagogical misleads.

Recent studies in computer programming showed that procedural coding, based on the flow of control has a user-friendly alternative. Since its definition as a new paradigm, dataflow computing has found use in a wide range of new programming languages. Today’s visual and text-based programming environments are early examples of this new generation. Dataflow became the most common computational model, especially for visual programming languages. This development leads to a new generation of design tools based on computational methods. Dataflow management quickly became important for designers, for nearly a decade, as they’ve been using scripting languages that required additional control flow, causing cognitive conflicts and duality. New design concepts such as associative geometry and parametric modeling became much more effectively rationalized by designers and the field of design computing has found a practical path of development. In a dataflow environment, designers concentrate directly on the design data, rather than thinking about the flow of control separately. This could also lead to a “pure dataflow model”, in which the design process might not contain any control flow at all. Grasshopper3D is a commonly used parametric modeling environment for designers. It utilizes NURBS geometry within a visual programming environment. Designers could develop associative and interactive freeform geometries, using a basic notation of input-function-output, which is similar to Yourdon / DeMarco graph notation. It uses a pure dataflow model, concentrating designers to think directly about their design data rather than an additional flow of control.

Here is the link to a paper on[1] the above issue.

Source URL: https://www.designcoding.net/dataflow-pedagogy/

---