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it blows my mind is how little of what he's put forth has led to others creating startups out of them. ...what blows my mind more though is he keeps giving tal

it blows my mind is how little of what he's put forth has led to others creating startups out of them. ...what blows my mind more though is he keeps giving talks and hasn't open sourced any of his software on github, like he said he would. i doubt he's working on some big product that puts all his software to use. it's all going to waste and could have helped propel the visions he's set forth. it makes zero sense.

michael_nielsen 12y ago
It is not going to waste. Deep ideas are more durable than either code or startups, but they often take longer to have an impact. As an example, "Inventing on Principle" has inspired many people and companies to think more deeply about development environments, and to try implementing more speculative ideas. A skeptic can point out that much of that consequent work is of mixed quality, but that's just Sturgeon's Law. What matters is that more people will think better thoughts about more important problems. And that's certainly occurring as a result of Victor's talks and essays.
spyder 12y ago
https://github.com/worrydream/Tangle https://github.com/worrydream/Tangle
- faceyspacey 12y ago
  tangle is really old, and his least innovative stuff at this point. it hardly counts my friend. Bret needs to stop teasing us. At least deliver the code for the one he said he would put on github. I think it's very obvious what needs to happen to software development right now. I'm straightup doing it--my startup is making come to life much of what Bret put forth in Javascript, where it should exist (on the web, not objective c and other technologies). He could help a lot by sharing his code, no matter what language it's in. His stuff could change the entire landscape, and now. I get it--we're all stupid developers doing the status quo who can't think for ourselves and invent something new. I get his message. And yes, that's a big part of his message whether he knows it or not. But the point is that the stuff he's put forth for all the live coding and coding observability stuff needs to happen now and like a lot--it will enhance coding by several orders of magnitude. So, I don't need any more talks about how we must think. We need to make simply what he put forth. We need to get done his gospel already so he himself can see what it actually looks like and move to the next level. My guess is he doesn't want to share the code because of some sort of philosophy that we need to do it ourselves, and more people need to be true thinkers and inventors like him, thinking outside the box. Fuck the philosophy. It's kinda arrogant. Release the code if ur not making ur own company out of it. I used to think he was starting his own company, which is why I never spoke up. But my latest prediction (after seeing this maker spaces drivel) is that he certainly is not. ...And it's drivel because he's making the whole point about observability regarding hardware startups, where it's way less of a big deal as in coding. Like, his breakthrough moment was when he pointed out how all us coders were so stupid for going along with how current coding tools work, which are totally unobservable. That is especially relevant in the abstract world of coding, whereas it is way less profound when it comes to concrete hardware objects, which by nature are observable. Not that it doesn't apply--it's just not at the level of breakthrough described in all his essays on his site. ps. ur talkin to someone who's read every single essay on his site, cherished his every word. this maker space stuff is crap. he's fallin off, side tracked, whatever. I'd like to see him truly help get some of his ideas executed. It would take zero energy on his part--release the code is basically all im asking.
  - Glench 12y ago
    Have you tried asking yourself why Bret would not want to open source his demos? Can you think of any other reasons that don't pre-suppose he is "arrogant"?
    - faceyspacey 12y ago
      Yea no good ones. He's OCD and not happy with his code. He has a lame philosophy that we must make it on our own and shouldn't have help, ie that providing the code will detract from it. ..he's the one saying he would. I get the sense he's just disorganized and all over the place, hyper focused with his latest discovery du jour. ie there is no grand plan. I used to hope he was buildin a commercial company but I just doubt he is. I want answers. If u people weren't so busy kissing his ass u would do. I love Bret Victor--I'm holding him accountable to the greatness he is.
      - Glench 12y ago
        It seems your response says a lot more about your thinking than it does about Bret's. Perhaps you might try taking the view that Bret has really good reasons for doing what he's doing and try to figure out what they are, rather than presuming what he's doing is not for good reasons.
vilterp 12y ago
Both the Light Table team (http://www.lighttable.com/2014/06/10/light-table-and-apples-swift/ http://www.lighttable.com/2014/06/10/light-table-and-apples-...) and the Apple Swift lead (Playgrounds feature: http://nondot.org/sabre/ http://nondot.org/sabre/) have explicictly cited Bret as an important influence — his ideas are certainly not going to waste.
faceyspacey 12y ago
yea fellas, i know this, and it's great. love light table, etc, etc. you're talking to someone who's read every single character on his site several times over. He needs to release his damn code. He could be many times more helpful that way. nobody's saying his talks and research isn't profoundly meaningful--but he could be more so if he released with the code. It's very hard to do a lot of the things he's hinted at. Code will help majorly.
- vilterp 12y ago
  Yeah, I actually agree. Him just open sourcing the Stop Drawing Dead Fish tool for instance would move things forward a lot -- just to see how the internal data structures & algos work.
callmevlad 12y ago
I decided to quit my job and start Webflow.com on the night that I saw Bret's Inventing on Principle video [1] and read his Magic Ink paper [2]. Based on lots of conversations I've had with other entrepreneurs, I'd say that a lot more people are inspired by Bret's work than you might think... [1] https://vimeo.com/36579366 https://vimeo.com/36579366 [2] http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/ http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/

michael_nielsen 12y ago

It is not going to waste. Deep ideas are more durable than either code or startups, but they often take longer to have an impact. As an example, "Inventing on Principle" has inspired many people and companies to think more deeply about development environments, and to try implementing more speculative ideas. A skeptic can point out that much of that consequent work is of mixed quality, but that's just Sturgeon's Law. What matters is that more people will think better thoughts about more important problems. And that's certainly occurring as a result of Victor's talks and essays.

spyder 12y ago

https://github.com/worrydream/Tangle https://github.com/worrydream/Tangle

faceyspacey 12y ago
tangle is really old, and his least innovative stuff at this point. it hardly counts my friend. Bret needs to stop teasing us. At least deliver the code for the one he said he would put on github. I think it's very obvious what needs to happen to software development right now. I'm straightup doing it--my startup is making come to life much of what Bret put forth in Javascript, where it should exist (on the web, not objective c and other technologies). He could help a lot by sharing his code, no matter what language it's in. His stuff could change the entire landscape, and now. I get it--we're all stupid developers doing the status quo who can't think for ourselves and invent something new. I get his message. And yes, that's a big part of his message whether he knows it or not. But the point is that the stuff he's put forth for all the live coding and coding observability stuff needs to happen now and like a lot--it will enhance coding by several orders of magnitude. So, I don't need any more talks about how we must think. We need to make simply what he put forth. We need to get done his gospel already so he himself can see what it actually looks like and move to the next level. My guess is he doesn't want to share the code because of some sort of philosophy that we need to do it ourselves, and more people need to be true thinkers and inventors like him, thinking outside the box. Fuck the philosophy. It's kinda arrogant. Release the code if ur not making ur own company out of it. I used to think he was starting his own company, which is why I never spoke up. But my latest prediction (after seeing this maker spaces drivel) is that he certainly is not. ...And it's drivel because he's making the whole point about observability regarding hardware startups, where it's way less of a big deal as in coding. Like, his breakthrough moment was when he pointed out how all us coders were so stupid for going along with how current coding tools work, which are totally unobservable. That is especially relevant in the abstract world of coding, whereas it is way less profound when it comes to concrete hardware objects, which by nature are observable. Not that it doesn't apply--it's just not at the level of breakthrough described in all his essays on his site. ps. ur talkin to someone who's read every single essay on his site, cherished his every word. this maker space stuff is crap. he's fallin off, side tracked, whatever. I'd like to see him truly help get some of his ideas executed. It would take zero energy on his part--release the code is basically all im asking.
- Glench 12y ago
  Have you tried asking yourself why Bret would not want to open source his demos? Can you think of any other reasons that don't pre-suppose he is "arrogant"?
  - faceyspacey 12y ago
    Yea no good ones. He's OCD and not happy with his code. He has a lame philosophy that we must make it on our own and shouldn't have help, ie that providing the code will detract from it. ..he's the one saying he would. I get the sense he's just disorganized and all over the place, hyper focused with his latest discovery du jour. ie there is no grand plan. I used to hope he was buildin a commercial company but I just doubt he is. I want answers. If u people weren't so busy kissing his ass u would do. I love Bret Victor--I'm holding him accountable to the greatness he is.
    - Glench 12y ago
      It seems your response says a lot more about your thinking than it does about Bret's. Perhaps you might try taking the view that Bret has really good reasons for doing what he's doing and try to figure out what they are, rather than presuming what he's doing is not for good reasons.

vilterp 12y ago

Both the Light Table team (http://www.lighttable.com/2014/06/10/light-table-and-apples-swift/ http://www.lighttable.com/2014/06/10/light-table-and-apples-...) and the Apple Swift lead (Playgrounds feature: http://nondot.org/sabre/ http://nondot.org/sabre/) have explicictly cited Bret as an important influence — his ideas are certainly not going to waste.

faceyspacey 12y ago

yea fellas, i know this, and it's great. love light table, etc, etc. you're talking to someone who's read every single character on his site several times over. He needs to release his damn code. He could be many times more helpful that way. nobody's saying his talks and research isn't profoundly meaningful--but he could be more so if he released with the code. It's very hard to do a lot of the things he's hinted at. Code will help majorly.

vilterp 12y ago
Yeah, I actually agree. Him just open sourcing the Stop Drawing Dead Fish tool for instance would move things forward a lot -- just to see how the internal data structures & algos work.

callmevlad 12y ago

I decided to quit my job and start Webflow.com on the night that I saw Bret's Inventing on Principle video [1] and read his Magic Ink paper [2]. Based on lots of conversations I've had with other entrepreneurs, I'd say that a lot more people are inspired by Bret's work than you might think... [1] https://vimeo.com/36579366 https://vimeo.com/36579366 [2] http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/ http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/