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

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.