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Very interesting interaction model. I love the idea of a program being able to read the shape of the paper - lots of cool possibilities. However - slightly dis

Very interesting interaction model. I love the idea of a program being able to read the shape of the paper - lots of cool possibilities. However - slightly disappointed that the programs are not literally controlled by symbols on the pieces of paper, but rather the paper just holds identifiers who point to a program on a server. I wonder if you could extend the computer vision system to pick up actual programs from the paper - either by OCRing actual text (perhaps limited to capital letters only, and/or particular shapes for letters such as I-for-India, to make it easier?) or a combination of symbols (each corresponding to a function in the API) and numbers (parameters). That way you could do really interesting things: modifying somebody's program by literally pasting a scrap of paper on it containing different symbols or parameters, or having programs which interact with other programs (either by treating their program code as input data, or by piping data between the programs). On the other hand, it's probably easier to write interesting programs with an actual keyboard :)

vitovito 9y ago
This is how Dynamicland currently works, also, but their goal is what you've stated. It's a hardware limitation.
- yorwba 9y ago
  I'm not sure how large the paper needs to be to be recognized. Maybe you could have snippets that hold only a single identifier or syntax element and programs would be arranged by puzzling them together. That should be an appropriate granularity for manually placing (no fidgeting with tiny individual letters) while still allowing full programmability with minimal trips to the printer (only to create some new identifier).
  - camtarn 9y ago
    Something like Scrabble tiles, perhaps? I wonder if you could create a set of symbols which were sufficiently distinctive enough that you could hand-draw them and stand a chance of the computer recognising them. Difficulty level increasing again...
meemoo 9y ago
If you have a 1080 HD projector and camera and 100" diagonal table, that's 22ppi in and out... OCR would be tough. It's easy to live-edit the code in a piece of paper. Once you start to get used to it, it's really enjoyable to jump between altering physical materials, arranging papers to alter communication between the pages, and editing code within the pages.

vitovito 9y ago

This is how Dynamicland currently works, also, but their goal is what you've stated. It's a hardware limitation.

yorwba 9y ago
I'm not sure how large the paper needs to be to be recognized. Maybe you could have snippets that hold only a single identifier or syntax element and programs would be arranged by puzzling them together. That should be an appropriate granularity for manually placing (no fidgeting with tiny individual letters) while still allowing full programmability with minimal trips to the printer (only to create some new identifier).
- camtarn 9y ago
  Something like Scrabble tiles, perhaps? I wonder if you could create a set of symbols which were sufficiently distinctive enough that you could hand-draw them and stand a chance of the computer recognising them. Difficulty level increasing again...

meemoo 9y ago

If you have a 1080 HD projector and camera and 100" diagonal table, that's 22ppi in and out... OCR would be tough. It's easy to live-edit the code in a piece of paper. Once you start to get used to it, it's really enjoyable to jump between altering physical materials, arranging papers to alter communication between the pages, and editing code within the pages.