Users discussed business processes that were not clear to programmers. Programmers spoke in technical jargon not often comprehensible to users. The two camps were rarely synchronous. Today visual programmers design business systems for workers to use at their PCs in the office, on the road, or even telecommuting via the Internet. This change brought the advent of teams of system analysts, visual programmers, technical writers, trainers, and project managers.
Analysts review and document the current workflow.
Technical writers author software documentation and often user training materials. This is in sharp contrast to programming of the past. Object-based languages, such as Visual Basic, are structured programming languages in which blocks of code execute only when the user acts on pictured tools. Object-oriented languages, such as Java, allow objects to operate independently of each other regardless of the environment. Communication within and between objects is accomplished via programmer coded messages.