HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

In this video, around the 38 minute mark, he shows a video in a slide, and I believe a few "slides" later runs a bridge simulation:

https://vimeo.com/82301919

(I can't watch this with sound right now, so I'm not sure if he mentions using SmallTalk to present here)

But as you can see, you're right: it's not obvious at all. Despite the valid complaints raised in the linked article, the structure imposed by slides is helpful in its simplicity; plus the audience knows how to "read" them, which is also important.

The point however is that he doesn't need special software, SmallTalk is kind of set up to let you do everything PowerPoint does. On top of that he has the ability to integrate scripted stuff to his presentations because, SmallTalk is by definition a live coding environment.

This does require mastery of the language and its Morphic UI Framework[0]. But on the other hand: that is one of the biggest reasons to learn SmallTalk (or Squeak) anyway.

TBH, I'm talking from a purely theoretical perspective. I've tried and failed to dive into Pharo a few times[1]. But its live coding aspects have always fascinated me, and Moose and Mondrian look like pretty interesting tools for dataviz too [2][3][4].

[0] http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr/FreeBooks/CollectiveNBlueBoo...

[1] http://pharo.org/

[2] https://vimeo.com/97315968

[3] http://www.moosetechnology.org/

[4] http://pharobooks.gforge.inria.fr/PharoByExampleTwo-Eng/late...

⬐ smcl

Amazing - thanks for taking the time to dig all this out! I'm going to enjoy going through these links

The Pharo guys are working on that:

https://vimeo.com/channels/ndc2014/97315968

Starts slow, but gets really interesting (disclaimer: I'm a biased interaction designer in this regard, I love this stuff) halfway in.

Pharo might actually become a very good fit for Victor's idea of a big-screen "seeing room" debugging environment, now that I think of it - combine it with some of Victor's idea of drawing dynamic visualisations[1] it would probably be a great environment for creating tools on the fly, and the "everything is an object" model is fitting for the tinkering-mentality of the maker space.

[1] https://vimeo.com/66085662

⬐ seanmcdirmid

Does Pharo support anything more than the standard hot code swapping and live object (but not code) manipulation?

⬐ vanderZwan

If you're familiar with Smalltalk, skip the first twenty minutes of that first video I shared and then stick around for at least fifteen minutes, that's where the customizable views are explained. I think that answers your question - although I don't know how innovative this if you take into account all the alternative UI's that failed. However, the way it is being implemented in Pharo really appeals to me, and I can see it really work well in this "visual debugging seeing room environment thingy" Bret Victor wants us to aim for.