programming – Page 2

CHOC — Traceable Programming

Choc is a tool for thinking powerful thoughts by stepping through code. It is an implementation of several ideas found in Bret Victor’s Learnable Programming.

Bret Victor’s Learnable Programming was an eye-opener. This tool is the JavaScript execution of that eye-opener

Choc →

Declarative Programming

Declarative programming specifies what the computer should do, not (as we saw with imperative programming) how it should be done. In CSS for example: turn all paragraphs red; I really don’t care how it happens, just make it so.

— John Allsop, Not Real Programming

Programmer Ryan Gosling

Programmer Ryan Gosling →

Learnable Programming — Designing a programming system for understanding programs

Bret Victor — of the mind-boggling Inventing on Principle fame — is at it again

Khan Academy recently launched an online environment for learning to program. It offers a set of tutorials based on the JavaScript and Processing languages, and features a “live coding” environment, where the program’s output updates as the programmer types.

Because my work was cited as an inspiration for the Khan system, I felt I should respond: A live-coding Processing environment addresses neither of these goals. JavaScript and Processing are poorly-designed languages that support weak ways of thinking, and ignore decades of learning about learning. And live coding, as a standalone feature, is worthless.

Best read I had in a while. The examples and solutions he gives are once again brilliant!

Learnable Programming →

Inventing on Principle

Finally got around to watching this awesome presentation. If you haven’t already, I suggest you watch it now; and don’t let it lingering around for two months like I did.

mind = blown

Codify

Codify for iPad lets you create games and simulations — or just about any visual idea you have. Turn your thoughts into interactive creations that make use of iPad features like Multi-Touch and the accelerometer.

Can imagine that a Bluetooth keyboard is strongly recommended here 😉

Codify →

There are no famous programmers

I still have to do programmer interviews like everyone else. No matter how much code I put out, I still have to solve stupid puzzles about coconuts and manholes. No matter how many web servers or email frameworks or database servers or chat servers or assemblers I write I still have to prove I can code. No matter how many copies of my software get deployed I still have to prove I can make reliable software.

Quote of the day

Like designers, if you give a programmer a problem with parameters, they’ll apply every bit of genius they have to solve it in the best possible way. If you tell them how to do it, you’ll suffer the wrath of an angry God.

(via)