Yes, Kai - that's exactly it.

I implemented an incredibly complicated node system at a prior company. We used nodes to do data manipulation. The primitive nodes did things like sort, filter, count, etc.

People with ordinary Excel-type skills would assemble nodes to do complicated things. When things got too complicated, or they wanted to share, they would make composite nodes. The program easily handled 5000 nodes in one "shader". It was amazing.

People with no programming skills whatsoever would rely on others to create new complicated features by assembling existing nodes. Then they would use them, completely ignorant of any of the math and with a single click to create. I saw some composite nodes with over 800 steps inside, and near-morons would routinely wire them up to answer complicated business questions.

Get SALES data -> Group by Region -> Find average per group -> Find Salesmen with X% below average sales for the group -> Generate list of people to fire.

I'm kidding about that last step.

What it was usually used for was revenue assurance - making sure you charge for every product or service you delivered. Or cost assurance - making sure you got what you paid for. Or inventory reconciliation. Or order quality management.

Ever time somebody orders any service from Comcast, they go through my nodes.

Every time somebody makes a phone call on Verizon, they go through my nodes.

Every person in Belgium goes through my nodes.

---

Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)