Here's another unedited ramble. With this I'm trying to describe my
live code editor, which has just been given the name of feedback.pl.
There is more to type, but in its finished form it'll accompany a public
GPL release of the feedback.pl. Perhaps some parts can be butchered one
or both of the papers however.
The theme is strongly inspired by Paul Klee's Pedagogical Sketchbook,
which I recommend.
feedback.pl
A painter, Paul Klee, moves to make a mark on a canvas. Immediately
after this initial moment the first counter motion occurs; that of
receptivity, as the painter sees what he has painted. Klee therefore
controls whether what he has produced so far is good.
A humble programmer, Yaxu Paxo, moves to type an algorithm into a
computer. The motion of the cursor runs across the screen, leaving a
trail of words and symbols behind. With the first outward motion
complete, the inward motion begins; the eye saccades across the text
on the screen, seeking out mistaken indentations, mismatching
parenthesis, ambiguities and misnomers. Then the focus adjusts,
accommodating the whole textual structure. The activities and
properties described by the code are viewed as features of an
imaginary object, abstract but somehow shapely. In this way, the
program executes in Yaxu's head.
But this special program is also running in the computer. As soon as
Yaxu makes a change to the text, the computer moves it into
running code. Yaxu imagines a form in his mind, works out
instructions for his computer to reproduce that form, and the computer
follows the instructions as soon as Yaxu has typed them.
These intructions are of course far from absolute. They interact with
the outside world, perhaps with with a person, or otherwise create
cryptographic fog from system activity. There are many tools
available to a programmer to create enough uncertainty to drive
determinism far from their work. A painter may place her ink drawing
under a running tap, a sculptor may let his delicate sculpture sway in
the wind, a programmer may call a random number generator.
As a musician Yaxu's real aim is not only to externalise the form so
that it may be built inside a computer, but to have the programmed
computer transform it into sound. So the form passes from the
imagination into textual program code, and is executed to ultimately
recreate the form as sound.
Then comes the strongest movement of all, from sound in the ear to
music in the mind.
That was the passage of music from the imagination, into
musical instructions for a machine to follow, to musical movement as
of the machine executing the instructions, to musical sounds triggered
by the machine's modulations, to music reforming in Yaxu's mind.
Yaxu controls whether what he has produced so far is good, and feeds
his reaction back into the code.
If programmer is to share the continuous artistic process of a
painter, this movement must be dynamic, it must be quick. Code must
be interpreted by the computer as soon as it can be written, and the
results reacted to as soon as they can be experienced.
Received on Wed May 19 2004 - 00:32:19 BST