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Comment by pwaivers | Hacker News Reader

I have read about Dynamicland before and really like the idea of an interactive program/computer. However, I still do not understand what they are actually doing. For example this quote:

> "Each one of these was made by a different person at a different time, yet Bret was able to combine them without making a single code change, he just placed them next to each other."

What exactly are they programming? Writing that face from scratch would take a LOT of code. Or is it like a high level framework they are all using which combines visuals together? The idea seems very fun, wholesome, and educational. However, they do not explain what is actually happening from a programmer point of view.

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I visited, but did not write any code. There's an overarching system that loosely couples everything together. E.g., the system provides drawing/sound primitives, controls how different pieces interact according to a fixed set of rules, and reads/displays the results of computations via cameras and projectors.

People write the bits of code, print them out on paper, with barcodes included that encode the contents of the program for the cameras to be able to see. Each program, then, specifies directives for its own behavior with "anything else" that wants to interact with it.

For example, one program might specify a "wish" to have a number n as input, and then it would produce as output a drawing with a flower that has n petals. Any program that provides a number (maybe by, say, asking the camera to see how many red blocks are on the table) can emit that number in a direction (the papers are oriented) and if you point it at the first program, the system connects the emitted number with the wish of the target program in the obvious way.

So it's like each program is its own independent agent with a really simple behavior, and when you combine a bunch you get some nice emergent system.

AFAIK currently the process of learning/writing the programs still happens on a laptop by yourself. I guess the picture of the young woman typing on a keyboard with the screen projected onto the table is a step beyond that.

Some of us are intrigued but can't pay a visit to the lab in person. I would love to see some videos that illustrate what you're describing and better understand how they would eventually synthesize into real life productivity

I get the sense the end goal here isn't in productivity but more for education and creating environments that foster a programming mindset and/or nourish more emergent creativity from being able to code at a higher level (probably the most consistent theme in all of Bret Victor's forays).

In a sense, it's basically just a framework with a text editor that isn't based in an OS but instead a 2d surface that you interact with, using your hands and interacting in a more social medium than something like, say, git.

> I get the sense the end goal here isn't in productivity but more for education and creating environments that foster a programming mindset and/or nourish more emergent creativity from being able to code at a higher level

While those uses are certainly easy to see and imagine in Dynamicland, the mission statement for Dynamicland is to "incubate a humane dynamic medium whose full power is accessible to all people."

The researchers at Dynamicland take this mission statement quite seriously and are making a new medium. Like any medium, this one isn't explicitly limited to one kind of use.

That's fine. Right now I've seen several accolades on Hacker News which to a website that has pictures and videos of dancing lights and spinning paper with lots of hand waving around how all of this actually works. It's natural that people who like to Tinker would like to better understand I have all these impressive things come together to build something practical

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