Principal orienation of Lava: spaghetti, tortellini, fractals

Spaghetti-like, tortellini-like and fractal program structures

	Structured programming has clarified the structure of programs "in the small": It has unraveled the control flow of programs by abandoning "go to" jumps and by allowing only certain standardized control structures (if-then-else, loops, etc.) that are "entered at the top" and "left at the bottom": Except for loop structures, the control flow is directed from top to bottom now. Spaghetti-like program structures in the small have been overcome in this way.
Image: http://www.freeimages.co.uk/	Some people say: Object-oriented programming (in combination with structured programming in the above sense) has turned spaghetti programming into tortellini programming: Many small chunks of code (= methods of classes), but still poor program structure "in the large".
Click to enlarge	Lava attempts to support what could be called a fractal program structure: A deeply nested tree structure consisting of a moderate number of small units beneath each node of the tree. Each unit is meaningful and can be understood by itself. Units are manipulated as a whole by structure editors rather than on a character level by text editors.