========================
Taking Off the Blindfold
========================

:Authors: Bret Victor
:Time: 4:30 pm - 5:20 pm
:Session: https://thestrangeloop.com/sessions/taking-off-the-blindfold
:Slides: http://worrydream.com/LearnableProgramming/

*Visible Programming: Designing a programming environment around how
human beings do human being things*

Talk about programming environments: the software we use to create
other software.

The purpose of a programming environment is not to increase
productivity ( implies "type faster"), but to see and understand what
the program is doing.

Five principles for the design of a programming environment

#. Read the vocabulary -- what the program says
#. Follow the flow -- what happens when
#. See the state -- what's going on during execution
#. Create by reacting -- sculptors start with a lump of clay and
   incrementally turn it into an element. The sculptor does not do a
   single pass and produce an elephant.
#. Create by abstracting -- we have a tower of abstractions, and we
   start at the bottom with a simple abstraction, and the move up. The
   environment should provide the tools to do this.

Read the Vocabulary
===================

If you look at a bit of javascript code, there's a lot of questions to
answer before you can work on the code. What do the functions do? What
do these arguments mean? What's the range and units? Right now the
answer is usually "look it up" or "look at the manual". What if you
could hover over the parameters and see what they mean.

Make the meaning transparent, and explain in context.


[ This talk was very visual, difficult to describe in notes. ]