https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_Software
"The development of Rose 2.0 combined a Windows-based Booch notation editor called Object System Designer (acquired from Wisconsin-based Palladio) with a new intermediate representation, and with new semantic analysis, code generation, and reverse engineering capabilities. The latter, which allowed prospective customers to analyze existing C++ code to produce "as-built" navigable class diagrams, helped overcome Rational's late re-entry into the market for object-oriented modeling tools. Rose 2.0 ran on Windows PCs and on several Unix-based workstations."
It wasn't usable, except to be used in the projects doomed to fail. Or spend a lot of money. Which is something a goal of the managers. But it still can't be named a success.
UML didn't pick up for whatever reason and visual programming fell into the valley of deception. I expect that with more UI/UX research we can get to the plateau of productivity in the next decade.
Btw, there is a variant of UML that is executable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executable_UML
If you believe it's a good way, you should certainly go that way. Please write about your experiences afterwards.
Rose 2.0, I've mentioned and quoted explicitly, produced the code from the diagrams (that's the "code generation" from the quote). And it was tragedy. Maybe you find somebody's experiences on the web.
As far as I'm aware, most visual programming today is actually implemented in the form of node-based editors, which gained popularity in the film and visual effects industries well over a decade ago.
The best modern examples I can think of are probably Nuke[0] and UE4's Blueprint[1] system.
[0] https://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/nuke/
[1] https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Blueprints/E...