Fwd: FlowingData - Live coding and inventing on principle

[Tom Johnson]

Yes, Nathan's right.  This is worth watching. 
After you've seen this, do any of you know what program this guy is using to display his code-building and editing in real time, i.e. without compiling?

-tom

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Nathan Yau <[hidden email]>
Date: Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 4:09 AM
Subject: FlowingData - Live coding and inventing on principle
To: [hidden email]

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• Live coding and inventing on principle

Live coding and inventing on principle

Feb 20, 2012 12:58 am  •  Permalink

This talk by Bret Victor caught fire a few days ago, but I just got a chance to watch to it in its entirety. It's worth the one hour. Victor demos some great looking software that connects code to the visual, making the creation process more visceral, and he finishes up with worhtwhile thoughts on the invention process.

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[Bruce Sherwood]

Tom, thanks much for advertising Bret Victor's fascinating talk.

The programming language he's using is JavaScript, with the display made on a 2D "canvas" element of a web page. Evidently he has modified the JavaScript compiler to compile incrementally, compiling just the line of code that has been changed.

His various demos, not just the JavaScript demos, are extremely interesting, but also of high interest is his passionate exposition of the importance of starting from a principle.

Bruce

On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 4:44 PM, Tom Johnson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Yes, Nathan's right.  This is worth watching. 
After you've seen this, do any of you know what program this guy is using to display his code-building and editing in real time, i.e. without compiling?

-tom

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Stephen Guerin]

This link almost got past me as it got pushed down in my queue waiting
to be watched. Thanks to Josh and Roger yesterday at lunch for
recommending it.

Definitely one of the better talks in the last 6 months for me.

Bruce, it seems one could just reload the script on change without
having to mess with the compiler.

-Stephen

On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 11:28 PM, Bruce Sherwood
<[hidden email]> wrote:

> Tom, thanks much for advertising Bret Victor's fascinating talk.
>
> The programming language he's using is JavaScript, with the display made on
> a 2D "canvas" element of a web page. Evidently he has modified the
> JavaScript compiler to compile incrementally, compiling just the line of
> code that has been changed.
>
> His various demos, not just the JavaScript demos, are extremely interesting,
> but also of high interest is his passionate exposition of the importance of
> starting from a principle.
>
> Bruce
>
> On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 4:44 PM, Tom Johnson <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>
>> Yes, Nathan's right.  This is worth watching.
>> After you've seen this, do any of you know what program this guy is using
>> to display his code-building and editing in real time, i.e. without
>> compiling?
>>
>> -tom
>>
>>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

--
--- -. .   ..-. .. ... ....   - .-- ---   ..-. .. ... ....
[hidden email] <[hidden email]>
office: 505.995.0206 mobile: [phone]

redfish.com |  simtable.com  |  sfcomplex.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[David Mirly]

Could someone repost the link to the talk?

Thanks.

On Feb 23, 2012, at 10:01 AM, Stephen Guerin wrote:

> This link almost got past me as it got pushed down in my queue waiting
> to be watched. Thanks to Josh and Roger yesterday at lunch for
> recommending it.
>
> Definitely one of the better talks in the last 6 months for me.
>
> Bruce, it seems one could just reload the script on change without
> having to mess with the compiler.
>
> -Stephen
>
> On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 11:28 PM, Bruce Sherwood
> <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> Tom, thanks much for advertising Bret Victor's fascinating talk.
>>
>> The programming language he's using is JavaScript, with the display made on
>> a 2D "canvas" element of a web page. Evidently he has modified the
>> JavaScript compiler to compile incrementally, compiling just the line of
>> code that has been changed.
>>
>> His various demos, not just the JavaScript demos, are extremely interesting,
>> but also of high interest is his passionate exposition of the importance of
>> starting from a principle.
>>
>> Bruce
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 4:44 PM, Tom Johnson <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>>
>>> Yes, Nathan's right.  This is worth watching.
>>> After you've seen this, do any of you know what program this guy is using
>>> to display his code-building and editing in real time, i.e. without
>>> compiling?
>>>
>>> -tom
>>>
>>>
>>
>> ============================================================
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>
>
>
> --
> --- -. .   ..-. .. ... ....   - .-- ---   ..-. .. ... ....
> [hidden email] <[hidden email]>
> office: 505.995.0206 mobile: [phone]
>
> redfish.com |  simtable.com  |  sfcomplex.org
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Stephen Guerin]

The direct Vimeo link is here:
  http://vimeo.com/36579366

On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 12:48 PM, David Mirly <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Could someone repost the link to the talk?
>
> Thanks.
>
> On Feb 23, 2012, at 10:01 AM, Stephen Guerin wrote:
>
>> This link almost got past me as it got pushed down in my queue waiting
>> to be watched. Thanks to Josh and Roger yesterday at lunch for
>> recommending it.
>>
>> Definitely one of the better talks in the last 6 months for me.
>>
>> Bruce, it seems one could just reload the script on change without
>> having to mess with the compiler.
>>
>> -Stephen
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 11:28 PM, Bruce Sherwood
>> <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>> Tom, thanks much for advertising Bret Victor's fascinating talk.
>>>
>>> The programming language he's using is JavaScript, with the display made on
>>> a 2D "canvas" element of a web page. Evidently he has modified the
>>> JavaScript compiler to compile incrementally, compiling just the line of
>>> code that has been changed.
>>>
>>> His various demos, not just the JavaScript demos, are extremely interesting,
>>> but also of high interest is his passionate exposition of the importance of
>>> starting from a principle.
>>>
>>> Bruce
>>>
>>> On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 4:44 PM, Tom Johnson <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Yes, Nathan's right.  This is worth watching.
>>>> After you've seen this, do any of you know what program this guy is using
>>>> to display his code-building and editing in real time, i.e. without
>>>> compiling?
>>>>
>>>> -tom
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> ============================================================
>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>>> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> --- -. .   ..-. .. ... ....   - .-- ---   ..-. .. ... ....
>> [hidden email] <[hidden email]>
>> office: 505.995.0206 mobile: [phone]
>>
>> redfish.com |  simtable.com  |  sfcomplex.org
>>
>> ============================================================
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

--
--- -. .   ..-. .. ... ....   - .-- ---   ..-. .. ... ....
[hidden email] <[hidden email]>
office: 505.995.0206 mobile: [phone]

redfish.com |  simtable.com  |  sfcomplex.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Russ Abbott]

This is a very smart guy. Graduated from Caltech with a 3.8 GPA. He was speaking to college students at the   Canadian University Software Engineering Conference (CUSEC), whatever that is.  He had the guts to begin his talk like this.

Unlike the previous session, I don't have any prizes to give out. I'm just going to tell you how to live your life. This talk is about a way to live your life that most people don't talk about. As you approach your career, you'll hear a lot about following your passion or doing something you love. I'm going to talk about something different. I'm going to talk about following a principle—finding a guiding principle for your work, somethng you believe is important and necessary and right—and using that to guide what you do. 

and to end it like this.

There are many ways to live your life. That's maybe the most important thing you will realize in your life -- that every aspect of your life is a choice. There are always default choices. You can chose to sleepwalk through your life and accept the path that's been laid out for you. You can choose to accept the world as it is. But you don't have to. If there is something in the world you feel is wrong, and you have a vision for what a better world would be, you can find your guiding principle and you can fight for a cause.

So after this talk, I'd like you to take a little time and think about what matters to you, what you believe in, and what you might fight for. Thank you.

And yet I didn't find the talk preachy.  He just laid out what was important to him. And what he focused on wasn't even what you might think of as core ethical values. By principle he had in mind something that guides one's professional work. His was immediate connection, i.e., bringing the user into as direct contact as possible with whatever he is working with. 

Given that, is it even worth making so much of a fuss about it? 

At the end he asked if his listeners had any such principles. What came to mind for me was to find the right abstractions for whatever I'm doing. That seems to include two things for me. (a) clarity of thought and (b) abstracting from concrete instances to the right higher level way of framing them.

 

-- Russ Abbott
_____________________________________________

  Professor, Computer Science
  California State University, Los Angeles

  Google voice: 747-999-5105

  Google+: https://plus.google.com/114865618166480775623/

  vita:  http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/
_____________________________________________ 

On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 1:20 PM, Stephen Guerin <[hidden email]> wrote:

The direct Vimeo link is here:
 http://vimeo.com/36579366

On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 12:48 PM, David Mirly <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Could someone repost the link to the talk?
>
> Thanks.
>
> On Feb 23, 2012, at 10:01 AM, Stephen Guerin wrote:
>
>> This link almost got past me as it got pushed down in my queue waiting
>> to be watched. Thanks to Josh and Roger yesterday at lunch for
>> recommending it.
>>
>> Definitely one of the better talks in the last 6 months for me.
>>
>> Bruce, it seems one could just reload the script on change without
>> having to mess with the compiler.
>>
>> -Stephen
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 11:28 PM, Bruce Sherwood
>> <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>> Tom, thanks much for advertising Bret Victor's fascinating talk.
>>>
>>> The programming language he's using is JavaScript, with the display made on
>>> a 2D "canvas" element of a web page. Evidently he has modified the
>>> JavaScript compiler to compile incrementally, compiling just the line of
>>> code that has been changed.
>>>
>>> His various demos, not just the JavaScript demos, are extremely interesting,
>>> but also of high interest is his passionate exposition of the importance of
>>> starting from a principle.
>>>
>>> Bruce
>>>
>>> On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 4:44 PM, Tom Johnson <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Yes, Nathan's right.  This is worth watching.
>>>> After you've seen this, do any of you know what program this guy is using
>>>> to display his code-building and editing in real time, i.e. without
>>>> compiling?
>>>>
>>>> -tom
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> ============================================================
>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>>> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> --- -. .   ..-. .. ... ....   - .-- ---   ..-. .. ... ....
>> [hidden email] <[hidden email]>
>> office: <a href="tel:[phone]" value="[phone]">505.995.0206 mobile: <a href="tel:[phone]" value="[phone]">505.577.5828
>>
>> redfish.com |  simtable.com  |  sfcomplex.org
>>
>> ============================================================
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



--
--- -. .   ..-. .. ... ....   - .-- ---   ..-. .. ... ....
[hidden email] <[hidden email]>
office: <a href="tel:[phone]" value="[phone]">505.995.0206 mobile: <a href="tel:[phone]" value="[phone]">505.577.5828

redfish.com |  simtable.com  |  sfcomplex.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Bruce Sherwood]

Say more, Stephen. What exactly do you mean by "reload the script on
change"? I would think that that there would be a noticeable delay if
that's all you did, though certainly it's worth a try.

I agree strongly with Victor's emphasis on the high value of immediate
connection. In the 1980s in the context of the big Unix workstation
project at Carnegie Mellon, I created the cT language to make it easy
to write (2D) graphics-oriented programs on Unix workstations (and
later the same programs also ran on Windows and Mac). One of the
features of the cT programming environment was that you could draw on
the screen and generate code (like using a graphics editor), and you
could select a (2D) coordinate in the program and click on the screen
to reposition an object (by changing the coordinate in the code and
reexecution). So a very limited version of what Victor is doing. It
was possible only because cT, patterned after the TUTOR and microtutor
languages of the PLATO computer-based education system, was organized
as an archipelago of "units" that could be used as base programs (you
could start up a different base with a "jump" statement, which cleared
the screen and started the jumped-to unit) or as functions called by
other units. The units were compiled just-in-time, so when the editor
detected a change in a unit (the editor recognized unit boundaries)
just that unit needed to be recompiled and reexecuted.

But you could be right. Computers are so fast now that maybe it would
work just to reexecute the whole JavaScript program. I guess I should
try this in the GlowScript context. Thanks for the tip, Stephen.

Bruce

On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 11:01 AM, Stephen Guerin
<[hidden email]> wrote:

> This link almost got past me as it got pushed down in my queue waiting
> to be watched. Thanks to Josh and Roger yesterday at lunch for
> recommending it.
>
> Definitely one of the better talks in the last 6 months for me.
>
> Bruce, it seems one could just reload the script on change without
> having to mess with the compiler.
>
> -Stephen

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org