Stefan Schiffer, Joachim Hans Fröhlich
Visual Programming and Software Engineering with Vista
in: Visual Object-Oriented Programming: Concepts and Environments; by M.M Burnett, A. Goldberg, T.G. Lewis (ed.), Manning Publications and Prentice Hall Inc., 1995, 199-227.

This paper describes Vista, a visual multiparadigm language integrated within a comfortable development environment. Vista supports fundamental software engineering principles during programming such as adequate notation, modularization, and weak coupling. Vista augments the object-oriented programming paradigm by signal-flow and data-flow based programming. It provides capabilities for the construction of event-driven and data-transformation systems. In constructing an application with Vista, visual as well as textual means can be used. Characteristic features of Vista are especially aimed at the combination of high-level and easy-to-use building blocks that are hierarchically organized. We introduce the notion of processors and networks and discuss how a remarkable degree of compositionality and reuse can be achieved by their employment.

Keywords and Phrases: Vista, Software Engineering, VPL-I: Environments and Tools for VPLs, VPL-II.A.8 Multiparadigm languages, VPL-II.A.9: Object oriented languages, VPL-III.A: Abstraction