Programmable Applications:
Interpreter Meets Interface

Maximising expressive power
in tools for creativity

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Hi there, I'm Ajith.

• software designer-developer
• 🇮🇳 → 🇬🇧
• tools for creative expression

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Tools for grokking systems

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Tools for visualising data

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Tools for telling stories

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Code is a creative medium

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Code is a creative medium

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Learning to code is hard

• there's a lot going on
• fundamentals are vast and sprawling
• disconnects from hand-eye skills

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Working with code is limiting

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Working with code is limiting

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Working with code is limiting

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What would a tool that maximises expressivity look like?

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/202511.202528

1. A Paradigm for Software Design

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• Creative applications can combine a DM interface with a domain-enriched language
   
• The interpreter and the interface can work together in a variety of interesting ways

Programmable Applications,
Michael Eisenberg (1995)

2. Direct Manipulation and its Discontents

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• Pure DM interfaces are limited in expressivity
   
• Lack primitives that programming languages provide

Programmable Applications,
Michael Eisenberg (1995)

3. Programming and its Discontents

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• A general purpose programming language on its own goes to the other extreme
   
• We have knowledge that simply cannot be expressed through a linguistic channel
   
• General purpose languages lack the domain concepts that the artist-programmer is interested in

Programmable Applications,
Michael Eisenberg (1995)

4. Integrating Mind-work and Hand-work

ajithranka.com · @ajithranka

Thesis: To be truly expressive, creative tools must provide a combination of:

• a learnable direct manipulation interface, and
• a domain-enriched programming language,
• working together in synergy.

Example: SchemePaint by Eisenberg

ajithranka.com · @ajithranka

Programmable Applications, Michael Eisenberg (1995)

Example: SchemePaint by Eisenberg

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Programmable Applications, Michael Eisenberg (1995)

Example: Ronin by Hundred Rabbits

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Ronin by Hundred Rabbits, Devine Lu Linvega

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