I wish there was node-based programming that wante...
# thinking-togetherc
Chris G
11/14/2020, 5:40 AMI wish there was node-based programming that wanted to be a mind-map more than a working gizmo.
It seems deeply inspired by mind-maps, but also seems happy to leave the "thought space" behind pretty quickly in favor of the work-space.
Yes we want to see our ideas "work", but sometimes the thrill is in the ideas themselves, adjacent possibilities, the model, the schema.
The code, the wires, the implementation, those are often much less exciting — we know we can make those work, they're rote.
Mind-map software itself has very little ambition, little automation, shockingly little creativity, which is beyond ironic.
On the other end, I don't really need something that compiles and runs. My mind can "compile and run" lots of things — even given fragmented and incomplete material. It loves that, in fact.
I guess what I want is fewer Turing machines and more mind bicycles.
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Ivan Reese
11/14/2020, 4:00 PM
A node-based visual programming system that was also a full-featured drawing tool would probably get you there, yeah?
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Chris G
11/14/2020, 5:34 PMI'd still like it to be a machine of some sort - beyond a mind-map application - with some programming, but that does something to the nodes themselves, grows them, prunes them - surfaces related, possibly connected things, sometimes random things - ultimately expands the thinking surface, evolves it
The interaction would be about the node graph itself - rather than me doing everything to the node graph to produce an effect I already understand
That's really the thought exercise - not using a node-graph to program, but a node-graph to explore, and in the nature of node-graph qua mind-map - maybe something like a node-quine?
Chris G
11/14/2020, 6:04 PMSome more thinking aloud:
• Consider what the "assembly language" of building and navigating a graph would be - now presume that those are the very same behaviors that you give to the running machine - for instance, a script where touching a node runs the NAVIGATE and then BRANCH steps - you play with those until you start producing useful new iterations of the mind-map - the most basic action might be JUMP/GOTO to a known node, because it's a part of the mind-map you always want to look at - advanced actions might use neural-network-lite scoring to try to discover a useful node to bring into the view
• There is probably a Hypercard-like toggle between "use" and "edit" modes
It feels like I've used a node-based environment like this, but not one where it considered itself as a mind-map, trying to work in a conceptual space
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Ivan Reese
11/14/2020, 6:14 PM
@Aria Minaei — Remind you of anything? :)
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Aria Minaei
11/14/2020, 8:12 PM@Ivan Reese Uncanny 😄
@Chris G you should check out @Ivan Reese's Hest 😉
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Chris G
11/15/2020, 1:25 AMI shall study it, thanks! 🍺
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hamish todd
11/15/2020, 9:55 PMHave you used Loopy? https://ncase.me/loopy/ Not mindmap but analogous, might answer some of your thoughts
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Prathyush
11/16/2020, 3:40 AMAre you thinking of something that makes the compute graph of programming languages first class but also can add annotated nodes on to it like comments?
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Chris G
11/16/2020, 3:54 AMI have, it is a neat system - that's a good reminder, thank you...
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