Deutsch limit

The Deutsch limit is an adage about visual programming languages originated by Peter Deutsch that states:

You can’t have more than 50 visual primitives on the screen at the same time.

The term was made up by Fred Lakin, after Peter Deutsch made the following comment at a talk on visual programming by Scott Kim and Warren Robinett: "Well, this is all fine and well, but the problem with visual programming languages is that you can’t have more than 50 visual primitives on the screen at the same time. How are you going to write an operating system?"

This limit is sometimes cited as an example of the advantage of textual over visual languages, pointing out the greater information density of text.

However, criticism of the limit includes that it is not clear whether a similar limit also exist in textual programming languages;[1] and that the limit could be overcome by applying modularity to visual programming as is commonly done in textual programming.

See also

• Cognitive dimensions

External links

• The comp.lang.visual FAQ by David McIntyre
• Parsons and Cranshaw commentary on Deutsch Limit in "Patterns of Visual Programming"
• Baeza-Yates commentary on Visual Programming