Agentsheets has a history reaching back to 1989. We have a created over 100 projects in Agentsheets in the past. Some of them as one afternoon hacks, others as multiple person-year projects. In this process we have experimented with extensions to object-oriented programming frame works, programming by example and with graphical rewrite rules. At the same time we realized the power of end-user programming with graphical rewrite rules but also their limitations. Visual AgenTalk is a recent (started in 1995) effort with which we explore new scaleable programming paradigms that would feature the same ease of use for end-user programming but allowing users to gradually move towards the power of some of the more traditional programming paradigms. Visual AgenTalk is an instance of what we call Tactile Programming extending visual with tactile perception. This is trivializing complex research issues, but in essence Visual Programming is employing visual perception to simplify programming by increasing the readability of programs. Tactile Programming does not question this goal but hopes to make programming more accessible to end-users by adding the perception of manipulation to visual perception. In Tactile Programming programs are no longer static representations nor is the notion of manipulation reserved to only edit programs. Instead, tactile program and their representations are dynamic including manipulation. In result, Tactile Programming turns into a unified program manipulation paradigm, that is a way to conceptualize programs, that supports the composition, comprehension and even sharing of programs through the World Wide Web. Tactile Programming is its very early infancy. Visual AgenTalk in its current form is a fresh seed of an evolving programming paradigm.
All this is fairly abstract especially because the benefits of tactile perception are hard to explain well in a static medium such as this document printed on paper.