I don't understand how that can possibly substitute for programming, because the reuse and composition of logic is the whole point...isn't it?

It's also the source of complexity, so just making a visual, drag and drop interface isn't going to make development more accessible, I would think. Less, in that it's more cumbersome and expands visually.

My assumption has been that this is an emperor with no clothes that is invariably sold to decision makers who won't use it.

But maybe there's more to it?

Yes! I've explored visually representing functions, and state machines, but it all feels very limiting compared to written language. I think more research could be done in the visual coding area for expressing thought, because I really want coding to look like something out of neon genesis evangelion--but IDK, written language isn't bound spatially. And in written language, it's so easy to express contradictions, which is an important part of developing a system. I think MC Escher is probably the most advanced research we have in the area of visually representing recursion and contradictions lol.

This is the entire advantage too. If you read this like a hard constraint, your new job is to simply make sure you develop a high-quality model of the problem domain. The rest could be put on the business owners, especially if you can teach them a little bit of SQL (the world's most popular DSL).

1. We need a richer library of standardized DSLs for various real-world environments, where the power of a full PL is perhaps too dangerous without excessive training.

2. The method of specifying algorithms in plain text (i.e. "code") is not intuitive or unapproachable for large numbers of people who could otherwise benefit greatly from the ability to "program" the tools they use.

#1 is a different but similar problem. "If only language itself was simpler, people would have an easier time writing novels."

We could do a lot worse than excel in a lot of areas I think.

Nothing in particular has been solved by Excel, it's just that the languages that are built in are disdained by software engineers so people assume there's something special about them. It's cultural. You can write a Lisp in VBA if you want.

Microsoft's attempt at low/no code appears to be Power Automate, and it's awful (imo).

Excel’s market power is in what you can do in the formulas, interactive exploration, and incremental progress not in the (fairly awful dev-experience) VBA.

Well, then again, I also think you are also falling into the trap of underestimating the amount of VBA code, and businesses built on it, because of your cultural disdain for it.

I’ve written some VBA; the DX is terrible, but I have massive respect for what they’ve accomplished and I readily reach for it when it’s the right tool. I wrote some powershell for a manufacturing site a few weeks ago. Didn’t enjoy doing it, but it was the right horse for that course.

Complete with debugging and maintenance and all of the other things that make "coding" hard.