  This is a motivating tutorial introduction to a semantic analysis of
programming languages using a graphical language as the representation of
terms, and graph rewriting as a representation of reduction rules. We show how
the graphical language automatically incorporates desirable features, such as
alpha-equivalence and how it can describe pure computation, imperative store,
and control features in a uniform framework. The graph semantics combines some
of the best features of structural operational semantics and abstract machines,
while offering powerful new methods for reasoning about contextual equivalence.
  All technical details are available in an extended technical report by Muroya
and the author and in Muroya's doctoral dissertation.
