3 ms·
I don't think his main point is modifying the program using the interface. The important thing is the quick feedback loop. In his examples in Learnable Progra
by pcmonk 13y ago
I don't think his main point is modifying the program using the interface. The important thing is the quick feedback loop. In his examples in Learnable Programing, you technically are editing in the same interface, but, really, you're just editing the code on the left and seeing the result on the right.
Additionally, I think that's actually the right way to do it. The result should be optimized for viewing, not for editing, and the editing environment should be optimized for editing, not for viewing. If the two can be merged into a tight feedback loop, then maybe we can get something of the best of both worlds.
- secure 13y agoOkay, let’s assume that you are right, and we don’t need the same interface. I still maintain that the feedback loop demonstrated in Bret Victor’s videos is _significantly_ quicker than anything you can achieve with any TeX engine in its current form. Think of the part where he draws the fish. Or where he drags a slider. You need update rates of a few miliseconds, tops. What we can achieve with TeX is in the order of seconds, at best — for simple documents. I am definitely not convinced this lives up to Bret’s standards :-).
- pcmonk 13y agoYou're right -- this isn't, and won't ever be (as long as it stays with this technology) up to Bret's standards. However, Bret's stuff doesn't exist, and there's a reason for that: it's really hard. What these guys are doing is trying to make something that actually works, and it looks like they're doing a pretty decent job of it. The fact that it integrates with all the normal tools (in particular, LaTeX) makes me inclined to overlook it's imperfections.