Perhaps it is good to add some historical background. As so often, in the beginning of its own invention, there were several terms used for live coding, and till today, the definition is intentionally left somewhat open.
Live coding has always had the spectrum between programming for a lay audience, an informed audience, for a student audience, among friends or in an ensemble without audience, and, last but not least, "alone". From my perspective, its strongest impulse it has gotten from the confluence between:
- the idea of conversation and thinking aloud
- bringing coding to hitherto unusual and unexpected contexts (bars, forests, waiting rooms etc.)
In terms of terminology, the initial words used were live coding, just in time programming, interactive programming and conversational programming. The prehistory of those practices and their change through the new live coding movement since around 2000 is a complicated topic, just as debatable any retrospective historiography of course.
We should simply use both terms live coding and live programming interchangeably, just as all the other terms. I keep fluctuating, which is bad for publicity, but I can't help it.
Received on Thu Jan 17 2013 - 16:20:49 GMT