Hi folks, I've been fiddling around with the projects spreadsheet here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12sTu7RT-s_QlAupY1v-3DfI1Mm9NEX5YMWWTDAKHLfc/edit?pli=1#gid=0 and I thought I'd take this opportunity to ask you all to ensure your entries are complete and up-to-date. New users welcome: just add your project! Note: your project should ideally be at least primarily open source.

I'd be happy to take it over, but be warned I will delete Dynamicland and its ilk from it if I do 😄 I might also deprioritize/archive many of the columns whose owners aren't active here anymore, since I see the sheet as a call for collaboration with people here. (I'm stating my opinions strongly for contrast, but I'd be happy to be persuaded about individual decisions if people here feel strongly. But Dynamicland has got to go. There's no action there anyone can take, and it dilutes the sheet.)

Dynamicland is the only one I'd keep. Yours would be first for the axe! 😂

😂

Seriously though, you chose the one project I would never want to see deleted, other than mine of course. Why the hating-on?

Oh I love Dynamicland! How could I not?! It has to do with what the goal for the sheet is. I've said this to you a few years ago. If you think the goal is to showcase the best work in the vein of this forum, Dynamicland and Dynabook make it in first. But if the goal is to foster collaboration, they're dead weight. Now if somebody were to try to recreate them, that would be top of the list again. I wouldn't try to do both sides in a single sheet, that feels muddy to me.

Original goal is to allow comparison and inspiration

Oh interesting! 🤔 That somehow was never clear to me until now.

Well it was meant to be people still alive and kickin' and mostly for those either on FoC or those who, if they weren't such big fish, would be here! Like Obenauer, and I suppose Kay maybe, and Victor of course

Boxer folks are alive and kicking. The project is even getting restarted, I heard somewhere..

What's "Boxer"?

Boxer: https://akkartik.name/archives/foc/reading-together/1700506589.079709.html https://akkartik.name/archives/foc/two-minute-week/1707702699.312779.html https://akkartik.name/archives/foc/linking-together/1705809928.006799.html https://akkartik.name/archives/foc/share-your-work/1702896140.206779.html https://akkartik.name/archives/foc/share-your-work/1703808750.611779.html https://akkartik.name/archives/foc/introduce-yourself/Beni-Cherniavsky-Paskin.html https://akkartik.name/archives/foc/present-company/1669913935.083149.html https://akkartik.name/archives/foc/share-your-work/1655409187.208529.html https://akkartik.name/archives/foc/thinking-together/1642361397.040700.html https://akkartik.name/archives/foc/linking-together/1639959543.201700.html https://akkartik.name/archives/foc/two-minute-week/1595738168.147900.html https://akkartik.name/archives/foc/thinking-together/1556510323.281700.html https://akkartik.name/archives/foc/thinking-together/1556510613.283400.html

I'm really enjoying collaborating with dynamicland, and according to their current website, 2022 was earmarked for 'dynamicland meets the world'. Delayed somewhat, I guess mainly by the pandemic..

Oh I'd love to hear more Alex. Perhaps share resources in a new thread? Sorry Duncan I've destroyed this thread.. 😕

If dynamicland is no longer active, then someone forgot to tell Bret and Luke..

My perception is it's not taking input in the same way an online community is. There's a pretty fundamental impedance mismatch.

Yes it's an outlier for sure.

Absolutely legitimate trade-off to make. But there are things they're trading off. And among them is being on "my" spreadsheet.

Personally I've got loads out of collaborating with Luke, although I am very much a free/open source person myself. I think the early stages of development of a creative idea is a special time that should be somewhat protected, and I guess they're in it for the long haul. I'm also sympathetic to the idea that open source techbro culture isn't a panacea, and their pre-pandemic focus on in-person collaboration and continued focus on long-haul in-the-community nonprofit development is really interesting.. plus their new website will share a lot.

Strong agree with @Alex McLean that we need to experiment with new forms of collaboration. Open Source was a first step out of the industrial-capitalist mindset. We need to take more steps. For the project list, that means thinking harder about what should and what should not be in it. Only projects from people active in our community? Only Open Source projects? I'd tone down the latter to "only projects that we can learn from", which requires less openness than Open Source.

Yes, acknowledging that the future of programming might well need to be defined outside any current community of programmers. I think that's Bret Victor's position which might be why there seems to be some animosity towards dynamicland here..

I think the main thing wrong with Dynamicland is its core, local-only, in-person philosophy! I obviously get the whole "handling real objects and interacting in person with people right next to you" idea, but to specifically cut out internet-based XR* from the discussion (and derived from that, or on top of that, having no normal internet presence and not being more open to non-in-person discussion of the ideas) seems very narrow-minded. (* AR and VR)

It's been pretty strange mostly working in Realtalk with only myself in the room, but of course the pandemic necessitated a shift of focus on collaboration over the internet. The tables are nicely linked.

Oh, I didn't realise it uses this "internet" thing now! I didn't see anything about that. What "tables" - physical ones or database ones?

physical! 🙂

Ha, right, thanks! So, is there any info anywhere online where I can read about or see this collab via linking of tables over the internet? It does sound like a significant deviation from the philosophy, and you hint that it's been happening since 2020-ish, right?

Not as far as I know, maybe there'll be something on the new website

Jeez I have zero animosity towards Dynamicland! Saying I wouldn't take a bicycle into the pool doesn't come from animosity towards bicycles.

I feel like what's actually needed is a project wiki, not a spreadsheet, and then we can tag a project as "by a member" whenever the person working on it is active here. I keep meaning to turn the codex into this...

That's a good point. I think all my comments here are through the lens of a spreadsheet, where space is a constraint and the projects are inherently ordered. A wiki would break out of that shackle.

@Kartik Agaram sorry I think me getting this sense is just bad timing after reading someone moan in another place