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? ;)

Ok, I grok the Varignon parallelogram construction now. This is pretty 🤯 In particular, encapsulation without lamination levels up the debate around whether abstraction is good or bad. One minor quibble: "encapsulation" is typically considered to turn things into "black boxes", which is the opposite of what's going on here.

I'd love better terminology than "encapsulation without lamination" — suggestions welcome!

Then again, it is black box w.r.t. meta ink. Just white box w.r.t. concrete points. I don't think there's a good existing term for this so what you chose is as good as any 🙂

I loved that podcast and its great to run with someone else's perspective and constraints to see where it leads.