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"Apparatus: A Hybrid Graphics Editor / Programming Environment" by Toby Schachman
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All the comments and stories posted to Hacker News that reference this video.There are people doing research into this, for example comparing how quickly various styles of loops are understood by beginning users (I wish I could find the talk on that right now). Like you said, it's not taken very seriously though.The problem I have with that is that it seems to be limited to verifying existing structures and solutions. That kind of quantitative research has its use, but is not really helping with exploring novel ideas in human friendly interfaces.
For example, I stumbled across Céu a few years back and I have never seen concurrency and timing done in such an intuitive style before[0]. Other things that have blown my mind in the last few years include Halide's decoupling of algorithm and scheduling[1], Jonathan Edwards' experiments with schematic tables as an alternative to if-statements[2], vega-lite's grammar of interactive graphics to declaratively construct interactive plots[3], and aprt.us' hybrid graphics/text programming environment[4].
These are all novel ideas that you cannot find through quantitative measurements about which syntax is optimal. Not that the latter is without use, since it can make people shut up about pointless disagreements (although I think the better solution to ending a holy war on bracket style is to get rid of it altogether and use something one default style like elm-format[5]). And maybe we're also not looking outside of our own field enough.
For example, I recently read Steven Pinker's "The Stuff of Thought". There was a chapter discussing all kinds of (human) language paradoxes and hidden rules based on how humans have different ways of thinking about aggregates, and how we use those subconsciously in our daily language. As I was reading it, it made me think "this makes so much sense of how different languages use collections differently, they're just applying different styles of intuition described here!"
The funny thing about most language paradoxes is that they require very specific ways of framing a question, and that they disappear when framed differently. Which sounds a lot like how some problems are easier in one style of programming or the other. And that makes me wonder if we can't learn a lot from these branches of linguistics about how we might set up our computer languages in such a way that humans are less likely to make errors of thinking in them.
[2] https://vimeo.com/177767802
[3] https://vimeo.com/177767802
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3Xack9ufYk and http://aprt.us/
⬐ lgas> There are people doing research into this, for example comparing how quickly various styles of loops are understood by beginning users (I wish I could find the talk on that right now). Like you said, it's not taken very seriously though.I don't know other research exists, but I wouldn't personally value any research on beginning users comprehension because you're typically a beginner in a new language for a few days to a few weeks but an experienced user for years or decades, so beginner experience is just not something I care about in the big picture. (Obviously there are reasons other people might care about it... it affects initial adoption of the language and so on, but I just don't care about them personally).
⬐ seanmcdirmidThe problem with studying humans is that you need relatively blank slates so you can have proper control groups. Experts or non beginners are hardly blank slates, so are much more difficult to study in the lab.⬐ NoneNone⬐ lgasI get that, and I don't have any great ideas for solutions, but I hope we can find an effective way to study the people of interest rather than to study a group of decidedly different people and try to extrapolate the results to the original group.⬐ seanmcdirmidThere are other ways, and they are used, but they aren't scientific enough (even if useful) to be published.
GeoGebra www.geogebra.org/ A geometry package providing for both graphical and algebraic input."Apparatus: A Hybrid Graphics Editor / Programming Environment" by Toby Schachman http://youtu.be/i3Xack9ufYk
⬐ dangAlso https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10293368.⬐ fludI like the reusability of the parts, but other than that it looks like Grasshopper but for 2D instead of 3D. And code-based instead of patch-based.⬐ armitronCool concept, misguided implementation.Look at Smalltalk and Pharo on how to do this properly, on the right platform. Not only is Javascript/browser the wrong platform for something like this, but it's also too constraining and limited in scope as to what one can do with it.
It's kind of sad to see bad re-implementations of paradigms that have been out there for 30+ years (in this case even more than that). I suggest that the maintainers of this project go to youtube and watch every Alan Kay video they can find. They'll learn a lot.
⬐ jhpriestleyPompous and condescending comment without any specific criticism.⬐ panicThe suggestion to watch Alan Kay videos is especially funny given that this tool was produced at CDG Labs.