On 5 Sep 2006, at 17:16, Till Bovermann wrote:
>
> On 05 Sep 2006, at 14:24, rob_at_robmyers.org wrote:
>
>> Quoting "newsletter_at_t-klein.com" <newsletter_at_t-klein.com>:
>>
>>> there's a difference between 'natural' and algorithmic thinking
>>> you haven't considered so far: feedback
>>
>> Feedback is just recursion isn't it?
>
> not in this scenario:
>
> Feedback
> means that the human being thinking (programming/playing guitar) is
> directly involved in a loop; that she dierectly gets the results of
> what she has done and reacts on this.
>
> Recursion
> on the other hand (in my view) happens only in the triggered /
> controlled system itself...
Recursion (certainly tail recursion) is feeding a function its own
output from within the function itself. Hendrix, guitar and amp are
mutually recursive. ;-)
> concerning the main discussion:
> I think one really important factor differentiating playing a
> guitar or a programming language is flow as Csikszentmihalyi [1]
> defines it. ATM we are not able to get into a flow within
> programming; results are still too far away...
"Flow" is a state of deep engagement with an immediate creative task.
It is common to artists and hackers (I've observed this myself and
asked other people about it) and is probably one of the things that
confused Paul Graham. Watching Alex demonstrate livecoding it was
obvious that speaking about what he was doing was interrupting him
getting into a state of flow. So I can easily imagine flow in
livecoding.
With a REPL (an interpreter or command line modifying the running
code) your changes give pretty direct feedback.
- Rob.
Received on Tue Sep 05 2006 - 17:07:21 BST