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Future of Coding Weekly 2024/06 Week 3
2024-06-16 22:21
🎥 Snappets: Procedural Animation for children (in VR!) 🧮 iPadOS "math notes" 💡 Some possible goals for the future of software
Two Minute Week
💬 Marek Rogalski
Things are moving again in the right direction 🙂 This week two new objects got finished - the Timeline and the Key Presser. Just one more and the MVP will be complete ^^
🎥 Video
Our Work
🎥 HypoTalk: Let's put JavaScript back in the event handlers via Mariano Guerra
A demo of HypoTalk, a live environment to develop and compose UIs with the least amount of logic possible.
🎥 Snappets: Procedural Animation for children (in VR!) via Hamish Todd
Hey folks, a video of the mathematical animation program I've been working on!
📝 You Are A Coder (zine) by enderverse via ender
“End users” are always already programming. I made a (digital) zine about this.
Devlog Together
very small update to my new project (name selection pending)
🎥 Demo
Thinking Together
A spreadsheet with the FoC projects
💬 ender
I am currently thinking about working on one or more of these ideas:
- visual pl for creating your own compiler
- visual pl for spreadsheet creation and customization
- visual pl for making domain specific languages
I will probably converge on a visual programming language with a spreadsheet GUI that compiles to WebAssembly. Any resources for intuition about compilers, spreadsheets, or DSLs that help me understand these topics would much appreciate.
(think: x explained visually, explorable explanations)
Some possible goals for the future of software
After some 💬 #linking-together@2024-06-06 discussions, I spent some time searching the archives of this community for the word 'manifesto', then skimming the manifestos I found in search of their goals, phrased as problems they saw in the world. Then I clustered them by these problems. Here's what I ended up with, possible problems we have seen in the past:
-
Programming computers requires a lot of knowledge and effort.
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github.com/dkrasner/Simpletalk/blob/master/ComputingManifesto.pdf
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github.com/stefanlesser/recurse/blob/master/manifesto2017.md (creating data visualizations)
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Adapting software to ourselves is hard; few people do it.
-
researchgate.net/publication/220427813_Meta-Design_A_manifesto_for_End-User_Development
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Software is trapped in silos (apps) and can't be recomposed.
-
Software is inefficient and unstable because it's built atop a Jenga-like tower of dependencies.
- vladh.net/manifesto
-
Programmers encourage the world to be profligate with the attention of others.
-
github.com/stefanlesser/recurse/blob/master/manifesto2017.md
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Software has a deep influence on populations without corresponding accountability.
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Programmers build software atop platforms optimized for consumption rather than creation.
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Programmers can't build a sustainable living without behaving in anti-social ways hostile to their customers.
-
github.com/stefanlesser/recurse/blob/master/manifesto2017.md
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Programming requires simulating the computer in your head.
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UIs are poor.
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github.com/Slackadays/Clipboard/wiki/User-Experience-Manifesto (discoverability)
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github.com/stefanlesser/recurse/blob/master/manifesto2017.md (touch-screen controls)
-
It is possible to break a computer's software in such a way that it requires outside intervention (e.g. a rescue disk) to fix.
-
Computers can't model the world.
If the problem you're chasing doesn't quite fit in any of these buckets, please share it in a similar format. (One sentence, not describing a solution.) If it does fit one or more of these buckets, please mention them. (Alternative wordings are also appreciated, but for me the primary goal here is to cluster ourselves.)
💬 Don Abrams
we keep telling computers how to work instead of what they should do
Content
🐘 Explorable explanations for great good via Kartik Agaram
🧮 iPadOS "math notes" brings some spreadsheet/Calca mechanics to handwriting via Beni Cherniavsky-Paskin
Oh, and they even added Bret Victor style variable "scrubbing".
(Desktop also got builtin Math Notes, minus handwriting, briefly flashed 51:57 — looks very much like Calca.io / Soulver / NoteCalc etc.?)
So, are we "Magic Ink" yet? (I'm not so much thinking of Bret Victor's essay as Ink&Switch's experiments like inkandswitch.com/inkbase, CrossCut & Untangle ...)
On one hand nothing revolutionary, spreadsheets had much more power for decades.
And yet a solid chunk of useful functionality is starting to move into taken-for-granted "this is just how futuristic paper naturally works" territory 👏.
I expect long term it might make such "what-if" explorations accessible¹ to more people, and more importantly prepare people for more complex interactions on top?
¹ well, once/IF it waters down to lower-end hardware. Good-enough stylus tech remains expensive enough to be niche, not evenly distributed 😞
💬 Alex McLean
I always thought field was well ahead of its time. Prefigured a lot of Bret Victor's demos and future of coding work that followed in 'real world' use.. Happy to see it is still active. Has anyone used it?
🤖
📝 arcprize.org via Nilesh Trivedi
This is an AGI benchmark where LLMs currently perform 34%. A prize has been announced for the first team to reach 85% performance: arcprize.org
Present Company
💬 Iacob Nasca
anyone around here working in a R&D department ? I need some pointers. Thanks!
👨🏽💻 By 🐘 @marianoguerra@hachyderm.io 🐦 @warianoguerra
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