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The tools that Bret talks about are insanely awesome and innovative. However, I don't think they are the holy grail of development. I think they will have a sig

The tools that Bret talks about are insanely awesome and innovative. However, I don't think they are the holy grail of development. I think they will have a significant impact in a few specific fields, but will not apply to overall design and development as well. Thanks to dom for bringing this to my attention.

DaniFong 13y ago
Bret Victor ‏@worrydream: An MIT prof after my talk: "It's as if you showed us how to climb Everest, and then at the end you say, 'We need to go to the moon.'" He changed his Twitter bio to say "to the moon."
breckinloggins 13y ago
Nor, I think, are they even the point of Bret's work. The strongest hint of which is the title of his first popular talk: "Inventing on Principle". The entire point of that talk was "this is the kind of tool you could make if you stepped back a bit". In the beginning, no one seemed to get that... everyone just kept asking for the download link as if the talk was about the tool itself. Chris Granger and his team eventually got that, but the rest of the world seems to still be waiting for them. This overall theme became even more apparent in these last two talks and I think he'll make it explicit in his last talk (scheduled for May 28). I predict that we are on the verge of a transformation in thinking about the role of programming. In short: Phase I: Code -> Artifact Phase II: Code -> Tools -> Artifact Phase III: Code -> Tool -> Tools -> Artifact In Phase III, programmers will work on creating ways to make the kind of tools THEMSELVES that Bret shows as easy to create as the artifacts that those tools create. In other words: code creates metatools. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is the punch line to Bret's final talk.
- lhnz 13y ago
  > The entire point of that talk was "this is the kind of tool you could make if you stepped back a bit". That's not the entire point at all. It was fundamentally about having a personal principle about what you feel is important and following this principle in all of your work. Why do you think it was called "Inventing on Principle"? Everybody obsesses about the ideas for tools he had but the talk was about inspiring people to create and follow their own principles. It wasn't about developers copying a better way. He could have just made it a talk about his own very great ideas but he didn't, he told you a way of thinking about "your work".
  - breckinloggins 13y ago
    That's what I meant. I just phrased it in terms of the tool he was talking about.

DaniFong 13y ago

Bret Victor ‏@worrydream: An MIT prof after my talk: "It's as if you showed us how to climb Everest, and then at the end you say, 'We need to go to the moon.'" He changed his Twitter bio to say "to the moon."

breckinloggins 13y ago

Nor, I think, are they even the point of Bret's work. The strongest hint of which is the title of his first popular talk: "Inventing on Principle". The entire point of that talk was "this is the kind of tool you could make if you stepped back a bit". In the beginning, no one seemed to get that... everyone just kept asking for the download link as if the talk was about the tool itself. Chris Granger and his team eventually got that, but the rest of the world seems to still be waiting for them. This overall theme became even more apparent in these last two talks and I think he'll make it explicit in his last talk (scheduled for May 28). I predict that we are on the verge of a transformation in thinking about the role of programming. In short: Phase I: Code -> Artifact Phase II: Code -> Tools -> Artifact Phase III: Code -> Tool -> Tools -> Artifact In Phase III, programmers will work on creating ways to make the kind of tools THEMSELVES that Bret shows as easy to create as the artifacts that those tools create. In other words: code creates metatools. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is the punch line to Bret's final talk.

lhnz 13y ago
> The entire point of that talk was "this is the kind of tool you could make if you stepped back a bit". That's not the entire point at all. It was fundamentally about having a personal principle about what you feel is important and following this principle in all of your work. Why do you think it was called "Inventing on Principle"? Everybody obsesses about the ideas for tools he had but the talk was about inspiring people to create and follow their own principles. It wasn't about developers copying a better way. He could have just made it a talk about his own very great ideas but he didn't, he told you a way of thinking about "your work".
- breckinloggins 13y ago
  That's what I meant. I just phrased it in terms of the tool he was talking about.