A student did a presentation yesterday about his work on Mech, and he surprised me by giving what amounted to one of the most detailed looks into Mech so far. I turned his presentation in to a little video attached below. Keep in mind, Mech is still very early and there's no error messages, yet he demoed this in one take live in front of the class. It's the programming-demo equivalent to pitching a no hitter imo. I was very impressed! If anyone out there has job openings consider Haocheng!

Another Clerk demo! This time it's @Sam Ritchie showing what happens when you combine a port of scmutils to Clojure with Mathbox in a Clerk notebook. One can write mathematical functions in Clojure that are graphed in Clerk with automatic translation of functions from source code to typeset mathematics using KaTex. I find this is fairly exciting from the perspective of maths/EE/physics pedagogy. 🙂 /cc @Konrad Hinsen https://www.loom.com/share/324ed39cd3a84ff4bc045a75a0f91482

Along those lines, I have another Clerk demo, this time with interactive animations of physical systems powered by a state of the art ODE solver that lives in the browser. For this “viewer”, given a Lagrangian (basically a function from some description of a system => kinetic minus potential energy, a SCALAR), the viewer is able to figure out how to physically animate the system. This is bonkers stuff. Here is a Twitter thread with a link to three videos: https://twitter.com/sritchie/status/1503220063264026629

📝 Fourth post in the "History of No-code" series 📺 Frox: an end-user scriptable SmartTV with a Magic Wand (1991) 📎 https://instadeq.com/blog/posts/no-code-history-frox-a-scriptable-smarttv-with-a-magic-wand-1991/

So the AI tarot reading app is done: https://thetarot.online/index.html It has been programmed entirely within Observable. Production traffic is routed through the developers notebook if you have it open, so you can observe the system live. I exploit observables dataflow so each step of the processing pipeline is cached, so you can see exactly where a problem occurred, and thanks to hot code reload, you can fix a bug and have the pipeline continue without rerunning prior steps allowing easy iterative programming workflows. Of course, because Observable notebooks are executing Javascript, you can attach a debugger too (even programmatically) One click forkable, MIT licensed. This is what I think the future of software development should look like. But I am struggling to communicate this well. The idea is to make cloud programming feel local, to exclusively test in prod, because when you are hitting third party APIs its a waste of effort mocking a staging environment, or a local environment. I want to remove the thick layers of indirection in the development process that no longer make sense. Forget git, forget toolchains, just straight to prod using modern Javascript, debugged with the authoritative debuggers built into browsers.

📝 Fifth post in the "History of No-Code" series 🌉 Sketchpad - A man-machine graphical communication system (1963) 🔗 https://instadeq.com/blog/posts/no-code-history-sketchpad-a-man-machine-graphical-communication-system-1963/

Some (unpublished) musings on how data is represented in programming systems - https://www.scattered-thoughts.net/writing/the-shape-of-data

I have been dogfooding my literate programming tool wheel. So far I have been able to develop multiple webapps, a game and even a C++ based desktop app with it. I also think LP can be invaluable in managing your programming notes and system admin commands, not to mention writing html based books. You can checkout all the project links here. I dub my approach to LP as procedural literate programming. Instead of developing new syntax, I use string substitution based approaches common in web development which is more flexible than all the other approaches to literate programming so far, including the original cweb. I think the fundamental mistake that people seem to be making with LP is using it to describe algorithms rather than code history, code inspirations, bug stories, features and any other context surrounding code like tests / security. This means that git commit messages can be skipped with LP in some sense. While complex algorithms definitely can use lengthy descriptions, you can assume your reader is a programmer and just show code as is for everyday code. I suppose if you want to keep existing ways of working with code you can copy paste the diffs manually back into the literate source code, but a well integrated IDE could perhaps avoid this step and allow you to use both workflows simultaneously. Last year I participated in a few jams which allowed me to explore different approaches to LP. I have developed a comment based code extraction and animation approach to LP called Loom and I was able to develop a very basic IDE using PyQt. It turns out that LP has a lot in common with Xanadu and Web because fundamentally they all are hypertext systems. Talk about a wild coincidence! Like Xanadu, LP is heavily dependent on two-way links called transclusions. If anyone knows Ted Nelson here I would love to tell him about my findings about how a transclusion based browser can act as an IDE to LP. I also found that LP can act a glue tool for generative programming. You can create multiple DSLs and pipe them through external scripts, while presenting just the DSL to the reader. This is something I am exploring in a compiler project where I am trying to generate C code from YAML. As of now I think LP is a huge plus for solo developers juggling multiple projects. Reading code in an understandable order allows you to pick up code where you left off. No wonder Knuth was so productive with it. You can checkout demos for wheel, PyQt IDE and Loom on youtube. I have also created a screencast recently to showcase my workflow with sublime

hey everyone, check out this programming-and-drawing exploration we worked on together with @Ivan Reese and @wolkenmachine at Ink&Switch a couple of months ago - https://www.inkandswitch.com/crosscut/

Hey muchaches, I've been quietly consuming the newsletter&podcast these months...errr..years (thankslots Steve, Mariano, Ivan and all of you for the inputs+inspiration!) while slowly working on my side-project: Tofu. When thinking of this community, I always place Tofu as more of an attempt at the near-future-of-programming. It does not aim for revolution as much as many of the cool things here (booo incrementalism boo boo). Anyway, after years of working on it and using it on my own, I want to slowly start letting people in and this community is prime for me there. It is currently an experimental extension for VSCode for structurally yet fluidly editing JS & TS. If you don't have VSCode installed, you can also use it within your browser here (there should be a pop-up asking if you want to install the Tofu extension). If you do have VSCode, here's a link to the extension in the marketplace. Feedback of all kinds wanted and welcome (here or over in the GH issues)!

Hey folks 😁 here's an update on my geometric algebra programming environment project

Last week, Ink & Switch published the Crosscut essay, which describes our (@szymon_k, @wolkenmachine, and my) work on a prototype tool for drawing dynamic models of your thoughts. It's a fount of FoC-relevant ideas. For instance, combining the place where the programming happens with the place where the program runs, but even further using the same tools for building and working inside the program. Also, Crosscut tries to not feel like programming, and present a minimalist interface that is ruthlessly focused on emulating the best aspects of traditional pen & paper. If you haven't taken the time to read the essay, you're.. probably busy, I shouldn't bother you, sorry. I'll just leave a note on the door. Before working on Crosscut, I had been slowly chipping away at my own FoC project called Hest (yeah, still just that one blog post). I also made a podcast just to think out loud about the project, so that I could self-reflect and thus hone my ideas and goals, and maybe someday build another prototype. But when the Crosscut project started, it drew all my attention, and the podcast stopped. Today, with Crosscut done and released to the world, I'm here to share a new Hest podcast episode — 46 minutes long — in which I compare and contrast Crosscut and Hest. • How are their prototypes similar and different? • What goals do they share and disagree on? • How has my work on Crosscut shaped my thoughts on visual programming generally? • What effect will that have as I continue pursuing Hest (or any other FoC projects)? To find out, kindly use this hand-crafted RSS feed, search for Hest or Ivan Reese in your podcast player of choice, or click one of the buttons here: https://pod.link/1559446316 And stay tuned for more episodes. They won't be on a schedule, but they will be about as relevant and entertaining as this fine slack message. So, fifty-fifty, eh? ;)

Hey folks, here's another update on my geometric algebra things! This one is something completely different from the previous editors, which have been about creative coding. This one is about quantum computing:

📝 New post in the "History of No-code" series 💼 Lotus Improv: Spreadsheets Done Right (1991) 🔗 https://instadeq.com/blog/posts/no-code-history-lotus-improv-spreadsheets-done-right-1991/

Today I finished automating the 'Google 'vs' trick' with an online moldable notebook. https://observablehq.com/@tomlarkworthy/google-vs-trick?1. The dog manifold is pretty interesting as people do compare dog breeds and it's quite clear what is a dog breed and what is synonym confusion.

Here's a bookmarklet to look up the #introduce-yourself post(s) of anyone in this community. Slack doesn't seem to let me create Javascript links, so you'll have to create the bookmark manually:

javascript:window.open('<http://akkartik.name/archives/foc/introduce-yourself/'+((window.getSelection()> != '' ? window.getSelection().toString() : prompt('Please enter a name (case sensitive)')).trim().replaceAll(/[^\w_.~-]/g, '-'))+'.html');undefined

You can either select a name before clicking on the bookmarklet, or type in the name (case sensitive) after clicking on it. Some example links showing off the current escaping format: • http://akkartik.name/archives/foc/introduce-yourself/Mariano-Guerra.html • http://akkartik.name/archives/foc/introduce-yourself/S.M-Mukarram-Nainar.html • http://akkartik.name/archives/foc/introduce-yourself/Santiago-Quintana--he-him-.html

Hi 👋, I'm creating a code explorer inspired by . The difference is that bubbles are not draggable, and everything has an automatic layout. Here is a video with the progress of the first weeks. You can give it a try to this really early version at https://minimalistidev2.netlify.app/

Shower thought after chatting with @Jack Rusher: we delay teaching kids geometry until we can trust them not to poke someone's eye out with the pointy end of a compass. Here's a little program to do compass-and-straightedge geometrical construction on a computer: https://gist.github.com/akkartik/20a0c7e7589c6179666fc78bc04b28b4 Pictured below: constructing a second line (in black) parallel to a given line (red) passing through a given point.

Hello friendly internet people! I’m happy to share the current state of my tiny, incomplete, toy of an AR project for iOS / macOS designed to parse, analyze, trace, and render Swift application runtimes in 3D space. I’m posting the Github link here, and I thank anyone and everyone many times in advance for taking a curious moment to take a peek, and maybe even share your enthusiasm and interests! I am absolutely open to critiques, comments, questions, thoughts, and of course offers to work alongside you and your like-wise visualization/AR/VR obsessed team <3 https://github.com/tikimcfee/LookAtThat

Hello everyone - just announced https://www.CosellerProtocol.com Lifelong passion, culminating in something useful for everyone on the Internet. Would love advice and help on open source licensing, blockchain bridges, etc 🙏🏽🚀

Hi all - there’s a live stream of Noodl (visual programming for web) right now with an internal build of the next release. Stream is open for the next couple hours, feel free to check it out. https://www.twitch.tv/getnoodl

For a couple years, I keep returning to ideas of composability, remix-ability, coding in small pieces, getting to snap them together and apart fluidly, like legos, and with lots of collaborators. This is what excites me about functional programming, how it lends itself to abstractions that compose really well. However I was recently inspired by @JP Posma to throw elegant composability out of the window and simply enable coding in the small by appending small programs together... ...and what we came up with is called twittereval. The idea is you add the words "eval" to a tweet's URL and then we evaluate it (and all the tweets above it or referenced) as JavaScript. It's obviously silly but also kinda neat, and I thought it would be thought provoking to this community. Excited to hear what ideas and suggestions you guys have! I'd also really love it if anyone tried it out and made anything cool :) https://twitter.com/stevekrouse/status/1523449402009948160

Within this week, I’d like to share a first demo of a future coding environment for the next 100 years I’m working, called Desk. This is what I am aiming for: • 🎮 Intuitive like games • 🥼 Pragmatic like professional tools • 🗺️️ Versatile like spreadsheet • 💗 Accessible to everyone • 🛹 Minimalist design Here is the repository and I would be happy to have your ⭐! https://github.com/Hihaheho/Desk

Hello Future of Coding community, I have finally had time to put together a draft of a concept I've had for a few months now - ReadableScript is a very simple 'javascript virtual machine language' that uses assembly-like syntax. Would love any and all feedback, do you think this could be a more accessible style of programming for beginners? Also as it's a "vm" it may be well suited to low-code programming environments. My next milestone goal is to integrate the language into a REPL. Note that this is a very rough draft, you can't even make strings! But the concept should be clear. https://readablescript.com/

I'm working on a unification of programming languages, databases and network protocols by starting with the serialization. https://github.com/bintoca/dbuf

I am adding some basic types to my Lisperanto project [ https://uprun.github.io/lisperanto/ ], some one asked me recently how would I represent booleans, and now I have an answer: It is a record with type “boolean” and value either “true” or “false” in terms of JavaScript it is:

{ type: "boolean",

value: "true" }

Hi all, I've got an update on the Mech language ready to go live. I thought I'd post it here first to get some eyes and feedback if possible: http://mech-lang.org/post/2022-05-20-spring-update/ I've only just finished writing it last night so I've got some proofreading to do myself. But there are a lot of cool videos in there so I hope you'll check it out and let me know what you think!

Quick write up on business processes as types: https://deathbykeystroke.com/articles/20220517-business-processes-as-types-lets-explore.html

Curious about what this group thinks of the approach we're taking with https://www.henosia.com/ We provide direct manipulation of the visual output of a running program, and think this is a great fit for UX Designers where their intent is "move that", "adjust this whitespace" and "insert a button below". It's visual TypeScript code editing in real time for designers. Oh, and we have multiplayer in the mix, which has been, let's call it interesting, so far 😂

I made a little demo of a text based knowledge management/second brain thingy