Bret Victor - Inventing on Principle

[@DivyanshuMaithani]

This talk was so ahead of its time. Its surprising how most of these ideas, in 2020, are still not how we think about or write in code.

[@stanislavmartsenyuk]

Here we are, in 2023. Still relevant as never before.

[@mohammedayoub5691]

2024. Still the same.

[@JDiculous1]

"You can choose to sleepwalk through life and accept the path that's been laid out for you. You can choose to accept the world as it is. But you don't have to. If there's something in the world you feel is wrong, and you have a vision for what a better world could be, you can find your guiding principle, and fight for a cause." One of the best talks I've ever seen.

[@bobsneidar3506]

That is how tyrants are made. No matter what your guiding principle, there will be those who oppose you, so you will have to do something to dissuade or marginalize your opposition before you can realize your vision, and you won't have a lot of time to do that. You are going to need to force the issue to achieve any meaningful change, and then those who come after you are likely going to want to change it back, or else into something completely different. Also, the binary choice you offer up of either trying to change the world or "sleepwalk" through it is disturbing. Everyone trying to change the world will result in the few with the means and opportunity to succeed to bring their force to bear, and then war and chaos will ensue. How about accepting the things you cannot change, and working to change the things you can? Everyone wants the world to change. The devil is in the details.

[@tiozz]

I keep coming back at this talk every few years and it is still relevant to this date

[@ruslanbes]

Timecodes for those who are interested: 1:55 Creators need immediate connection to what they are creating 10:43 Applying this principle to animation 16:45 Visualizing generic programming code 23:26 Applying this principle in electronic engineering 26:10 Two golden rules of information design 27:30 Why we have these squiggly symbols in the first place? 29:20 Working with animation 34:07 Why? 38:07 Larry's principle 44:35 Other people principles 47:45 Your principle

[@omaryahia]

really, thank you thank you all people who give us useful timestamp comments :)

[@bbuggediffy]

Thank you kind timecode man

[@yeetdeets]

34:07 Why? 38:07 Larry's principle

[@ruslanbes]

@@yeetdeets thanks a lot! Fixed

[@user-sw1wq8lh2w]

Shortening the feedback loop was the single most important piece of improving my code productivity and understanding of code.

[@ChrisAthanas]

Death to the compiler loop

[@yushpi]

How was this made possible? What is the speaker using that output changes in real time?

[@atul7173]

@@yushpi Exactly my question. I think he was showing the possibilities! Because if something like that existed it should have been a de-factor .

[@marceloprado2035]

Coming back to this talk after seeing the latest AI advancements. This feels more relevant than never.

[@monugupta32]

A very eye opening talk & I come back to this talk from time to time, invaluable & hard to find ideas / perspectives.

[@overlisted]

"And to a large extent, the people that we consider be skilled software engineers, are just those people who are very good at playing computer."

[@benfrese3573]

This is a catchy quote and there's some truth to this I'd think. But I know some of these people and this skill ("playing computer") is valuable. They just seem to breath code and will always be better programmers than I am (maybe I am wrong though)

[@曾亭翰]

I think this talk just changed my life...

[@StevenSarasin]

Yes. This will change the world. As a junior/highschool math tutor, I find this exhilarating. The potential to drive knowledge hunger in students and exemplify the potential for individual creativity in technical environments is so exciting. Finally. Really seems like "inventing on principle" could change the world exponentially, pushing us towards a more empowered and competent youth and future population.

[@iyifr]

It's been more than a decade and it's still ahead of it's time

[@zubairq]

First time I am fully seeing this talk, or maybe it was just a long time ago. Absolutely amazing!

[@bboysil]

one of the most inspiring speeches I heard in while.

[@paceaux]

This presentation is why the majority (90%) of my experience in programming is front-end web development. JavaScript in the browser gets me so much closer to my final product than C# in Visual Studio, C++ in xCode, or Java in Eclipse. I can open the console, and experiment away in real time. Some people can store in their active memory what they think their code is going to do, and they can remember that up to the point of compilation and execution. I don't do that well with the separation. I want to see what my code is doing as I run it. This guy gets it. He gets it 100%. The hard part about programming is the distance between the code and the product. And we have the ability to change that.

[@threegreenlights7361]

Sure, it all makes sense if you do web dev and web applications. But, someone has to build Operating systems, UIs and browsers for you to have this development ease of front-end web dev.

[@overlisted]

@@threegreenlights7361 Someone had to build your house.

[@threegreenlights7361]

@@overlisted Relax, I'm simply saying that this style won't work for low level development

[@benfrese3573]

"The hard part about programming is the distance between the code and the product." - SOMETIMES, yes. But I worked on problems with pieces of paper on my desk to visualize things better, and the hard part was solving the problem, not the "distance". So even though I know what you are trying to say I wouldn't second that

[@tripsam4655]

@@benfrese3573 You have to be a quite experienced programmer to reach the level where you work on paper, figure out a solution, write the code and voila! A lot of the times problems and glitches prop up where you didn't expect and some real-time feedback on changing the code like in video would be tremendously useful.

[@edgardivi]

genius!, Bret Victor will make history with his vision, and probably change the way many technical and creative people work. Thank you

[@driziiD]

02:33 coding 03:26 coding environment 13:40 map time to space 16:46 binary search 23:22 electronic circuit 29:37 keyframes 38:12 larry tesler 44:27 doug englebart 50:10 finding a principle

[@clee5653]

Have to rewatch this every now and then to remind me what I should do.

[@thuggfrogg]

Me too!

[@ChristianMogensen]

Yes - shift keys are modes, but because they are physical (let go of the shift key to exit the mode) they are much better. You don't have to think to know if you are holding the shift key down. Invisible stateful modes are bad.

[@Kayotesden]

I need to watch this again and again to fully digest... amazing talk!

[@CatalinCighi]

This gentleman is worth watching - I am curious to see what he will offer next.

[@elgrego]

One of the best videos on youtube

[@kerron68]

one of the best videos i've watched in a very long time.

[@ReneeNme]

This man, while whiling away his time in life, used to work for a musical instrument production company called Alesis. During his time with Alesis, he designed 2 brilliant synthesizers called the Ion and the other was called the Micron. We want him back from you goofy people. You don't deserve him. We need his brilliance more than you do. He is our Dr. Frankenstein.

[@glitchculture]

also the Fusion

[@MorrisHsu-h1p]

simple one of the best talks I've ever seen. Still trying to find what matters to me and what I believe in. Listening to you gave me a huge boost of confidence

[@nonefvnfvnjnjnjevjenjvonej3384]

did you figure out what?

[@MorrisHsu-h1p]

Creating something useful for humanity

[@Saikodan99]

The year is 2023. There are many useable demos here. Why haven't we seen any product similar to this yet?

[@swyxTV]

I see you're all back here again to pay your annual tribute edit: hello from 2024. mass orgasm at 14:08 will never be topped

[@EddyVinck]

Yup!

[@thuggfrogg]

Ofc

[@DivyanshuMaithani]

I keep revisiting this talk, so much that's still missing and could be! Nice to see you also paying annual tribute 😄

[@MaxPrehl]

Aye

[@JustinTuchek]

Confirmed

[@jackmead7292]

This video made me realize what my past decade, in my 20's, in development has really been about. Have I really made revolutionary changes? No. Did I patent, copyright, open-source, or showcase anything revolutionary? No. But did I test a bunch of things? Build relationships? Fail? Yes, yes, and absolutely yes.

[@TomLynch]

Fantastic. Wish I had found it in Feb 2012.

[@smlasdhaosf7764]

at first I thought the title should be guided by principle, but after finishing the talk, I found the power and the need of the word 'inventing'

[@ericcartmansh]

The core idea is to remove as many abstractions and levels of translations you need to do in your brain to see something materliase. Going from typing in a command prompt window to use the mouse to translate the motion of your fingers to using a touchscreen to using your words to eventually eye movements and then the machine being able to read your thoughts.

[@amc85]

Leaving aside the great talk. I find the example of the binary search visualization of how Swift Playgrounds works in some way.

[@thisweekinreact]

If you are interested in how the demos with Mario are working, check my SO answer: stackoverflow.com/a/31388262/82609

[@krishna-tj9ut]

can't thank enough arnav gupta for suggesting this , life changing stuff

[@8day1989]

The weirdest thing is that this lecture (?) is in some way the best that I've ever seen, but it only has 84k views %hysterical lol%. But, I guess that's because the name of lecture does not reflect its content, which, in general, is close to problem identification/spotting & problem solving. It's good to know that there are people like Bret.

[@DutchmanDavid]

Kinda late with a reply, but his original video is hosted on Vimeo: vimeo.com/36579366 635K views... Nice! :D

[@YashKMusic]

Genius - this talk should be curriculum

[@theandrewheuss]

10 years later it's still more relevant than ever

[@di4352]

Could not agree more.

[@nucleartide]

I find it amusing how a majority of these comments completely miss the point of the talk.

[@fabdlnltc]

Yeah.... "What IDE/tools he used and how to download them or buy" "That solution only works on that simple scenario" "This is why i like/don't like X" "If you do that, you would produce worst programmers who cant use all the functionalities" "You are wasting CPU cycles and not making the perfect solution you will want later" If you are one of that kind of people, definitely, you have to rewatch this...

[@markwang6415]

The medium is the message. Given that his talk is about how having a principle can make you do incredible things, it shouldn't be surprising at all that people are focusing on the incredible things (his development setups) that his principle has allowed him to make. I think that's exactly the point of the talk.

[@ChrisAthanas]

We have a long way to go

[@ducksoop.x]

2024. Things haven't changed.

[@lionelmcadams2128]

Bret Killed this!

[@ecofriend93]

Came here after listening to Indie Hackers podcast. Glad I did.

[@David-2501]

The reason his ideas aren't coming off the ground is because he doesn't share code. We dirty plebs who are still stuck with the old ways can't imagine how to get where he is, and we can't use his code as an example, because he never shares :( RIP Bret Victor's ideas - You shared them, but not your implementations. He's like Ted Nelson (who coined the terms hypertext and hypermedia in 1963): He likes sharing his ideas, but not his work. This means that his ideas will not be accepted by the mainstream. Simple as that.

[@ChrisAthanas]

The implementation is not as important as the concepts conveyed

[@grawss]

@@ChrisAthanas The implementation is the only thing that matters to the current industry.

[@ChrisAthanas]

@@grawss which is why we all suffer It's totally possible and reasonable to optimize any system But changing an architecture that supports efficient changes is an order of magnitude larger problem Which is why 80% of costs of software see "maintenance" not "bad performance"

[@ba8e]

That was fucking awesome!

[@RonWolfHowl]

But what if you need cooperation from other people to pursue your cause? How would you go about finding support for your cause, let alone others who share that cause?

[@captaincoherence]

Technology that supports the frictionless flow of creativity. Great. Very inspiring. Thanks. Design software interfaces that make people more comfortable with working with the computer.

[@smbot31]

I'm still picking up my jaw from the floor.

[@jpmaico07]

thank you for sharing these ideas! Priceless.

[@patilashish]

This guy made What SwiftUI can do before even apple swift language was born. Apple really copies from best of the best.

[@giaphatha88]

This is so good

[@MelindaGreen]

What a wonderful presentation! My only quibble is that the edit-compile-debug cycle is not either immediate (and good) or not (and bad). Sure, immediate feedback is great, but slow feedback is better than slower. I've found that something magical happens at around the 30 second average in the edit-compile-debug loop. I love as tight a loop as possible, but I can deal with a lag of up to about 30 seconds. Any more than that results in my having to change my approach altogether and having very little fun. Of course immediate feedback is best of all. In programming, I feel that idea is at its best in "dataflow" systems. (See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dataflow_programming.) I've worked with a number of these systems and it's by far the way I wish I could work all of the time. Perhaps that could have been my "cause".

[@Eduard16180]

Yes, wonderful. I remember the first debugger.

[@MelindaGreen]

Eduard Baumann Heh, yeah, I remember seeing coworkers using debuggers for the first time, and unfortunately I resisted for a long time. I liked the simplicity of my edit/compile/test cycles including lots of print statements. That was probably OK at the time but these days I definitely wouldn't want to work without a full IDE. I may be slow but I learn.

[@SolidAir54321]

+Melinda Green Ok, since you brought up _quibbles_, “Ideas are very precious to me. And when I see ideas dying…it hurts. ” And when I hear that, I see a young guy who doesn’t yet have lower back problems, lol. That hurts. I’d rather have dead ideas any day.

[@MelindaGreen]

SolidAir54321 I have no idea what you said but I like it!

[@SolidAir54321]

+Melinda Green The quote was from the video at 36:20. My quibble was that he was starting to sound rather pompous at that point.

[@Norfeldt]

Sharing your IDEs would really make a difference to how I would do future programming/science/art

[@HolyAvgr]

It's not quite like that but I know for a fact that Unity3d lets you visualize code and assets in a very similar manner. Also, it's free.

[@ExRxIxC]

For the ones who don't like the muffled sound, I tried to enhance it a bit: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aYXRo2qoaciApc0

[@angiasaa]

I don't know why people still use Vimeo. But many many thanks for the upload!

[@nhlanhlawonder3849]

This guy is amazing!!

[@coworksurf]

Vlad understood the assignment.

[@ericcartmansh]

Perhaps the best video ever

[@wisnuops]

Yup. Thanks. Vimeo is blocked in Indonesia.

[@fyodorx5428]

2012, good old days... When censorship belonged to the list of moral evils, particularly the one that contains gender discrimination and environmental pollution.

[@ChrisAthanas]

Any apps that do any of this yet?

[@blackholeearth0_923]

bob ross of programming inventions

[@horridohobbies]

Bret mentioned Alan Kay. Alan and his team at Xerox PARC gave us Smalltalk, a fantastic programming language. I always recommend beginners in programming start with Smalltalk, esp. children. It's the very best way to learn about object-oriented programming, which consumes the world of software. Smalltalk's live coding IDE/runtime is the closest that any general-purpose programming tool today comes to realizing Bret's vision of connecting developers to their product with an immediate feedback loop. Despite what many may believe, Smalltalk is still very much alive and kicking today. It's used by major enterprises around the globe. Smalltalk is perhaps the most underrated programming language ever.

[@valorien1]

Mind = Blown.

[@andrewdunbar828]

This reminds me of other videos I watched some years back on "reactive programming".

[@vishaltk]

i watch this video once every month to refuel my motivation

[@yaguarete79]

Anybody knows the source editor he's using? At 3:48 he makes changes in the code and they're instantly reflected on the result page. Also, that source code is interesting too. I wonder if it's available for download.

[@thuggfrogg]

He built it, and people have asked for the source code for ages!

[@ChrisAthanas]

You will likely need to recreate it Those are just prototypes

[@FreshThreadShop]

How did we all miss living in this future??

[@antoniobrandao1]

yay, let's reinvent the wheel he has invented

[@AndySowards]

I totally heard the Ed Norton in his voice too, made this talk all the more enjoyable

[@benmaxinm]

Found that through Figma founder. Amazing, thanks for sharing your principles.

[@johanneskingma]

This looks like how front-end web development emerged the last 10 years

[@luuans2]

Damn, that's a unbelievable good talk

[@nicolrz]

I think this guy is intelligent. If he doesn't provide the software, I think there is a reason for. But what he provide to us is something better. An idea. A concept. Right now, everyone in the world can know and understand the concept. Everyone can build this tool, Everyone can improve this concept to a better concept. If you really want to use this tool cause you think your actual isn't adapted to your needs. You can just build it (like me), i'm pretty sure you can learn a lot of great stuff

[@nutelina]

So did Apple pick this up with Swift and Xcode's Playground? Brett used to work for Apple or? What is the story behind this?

[@kavan1773]

Paul van Nugteren it's possible that playgrounds has been an idea at Apple for a long time now and that Brett had something to do with it. There are a lot of ideas at Apple that either never develop or take years. I read somewhere that Brett mentioned that the touch bar was a concept brought up at Apple almost 8 years ago. It's only been put into production starting last year. I think one of the reasons he left Apple is because a lot of his ideas were never used and can't even be shared publicly now because they simply belong to Apple.

[@nutelina]

Thanks!

[@nxone9903]

Incredible.

[@InXLsisDeo]

Javascript, and an own environment he developed himself.

[@beingdannolan]

Who taught Ed Norton binary search?

[@vodapramod]

This inspired devtools to become what it is now

[@toob94]

so what kind of program, can i get one, how much, is it worth it?

[@liltechnomancer]

+toob94 You could use the Elm programming language. We have this.

[@GiocosoGambol]

+toob94 This editor is modeled after these ideas lighttable.com/

[@swd1758]

Cole Geissinger What you said is actually opposite. The guy that started Lighttable was influenced by this video. There is a fascinating article (which has an audio link that’s even better) about this talk and the future of software, article written in 2017 I believe. www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/09/saving-the-world-from-code/540393/

[@ddubs123]

"This editor" refers to the link Cole provided. "These ideas", refer to the video. English is funny.

[@btayeni8226]

English isn't funny. The guy didn't just ordered his words syntactically or perhaps semantically. :D

[@rekall76]

brilliant

[@beskamir5977]

The most disappointing part of this talk is that it's been at least 7 years since this talk and we're all basically still interacting with our creations in pretty much the same way as prior to this talk. Sure there are programs which allow for real time or near real time interaction when editing something but overall it's nowhere near what it could be. Unfortunately the gulf's of execution and evaluation are often limited on the technology we use (and when it's not we just make more impressive stuff that can't be made in real time on the tech we've got).

[@eugenej.5584]

Lispers develop in this style for like last 60 years or so :D kzbin.info/www/bejne/gYvNd4maip2Jgqs

[@eugenej.5584]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/mKazgXquhNN1pM0

[@ChrisAthanas]

Yes stuck in 1959

[@ZackofHearts]

Yeah what is the programming application /tool/program?

[@eyobgemechu823]

amazing and inspiring speech

[@vitaviator4]

Really cool, nice job Bret

[@slightlygruff]

Do you have a link to all those animations?

[@bbckyotoku]

So when hold control in the keyboard are you switching to a mode?

[@boonkiathan]

This is why I think all IDEs ever built suck. They mire you inside hotkeys, long tables of values, lots of task runs, console outputs, traces... everything but get you enjoying the coding and getting stuff done!

[@ChrisAthanas]

It’s still based on techniques created in 1968

[@bhabanimohapatra1877]

my annual tribute

[@RobertFant]

Interesting! Please tell me what programming application is being used that allows such visualization. Thanks,

[@ChrisAthanas]

He wrote them himself Looks like a ton of custom objective c

[@CmdrMartinThompson]

I'm both. You first need to see the problem before you can find a solution ;)

[@KevinKanji]

Check out light table on kickstarter

[@ruif99]

@atomicjelly88 You're welcome

[@Firanolfind]

the future is already here, gents

[@St4rdog]

Check his follow up article - worrydream com/#!/LearnableProgramming

[@Bioflukes]

We hate ideas dying too: Journal of Errology

[@matthieucneude5761]

He didn't say where I can download his brain.

[@mehdicharife2335]

Is this still relevant?

[@ChrisAthanas]

More than ever

[@mehdicharife2335]

@@ChrisAthanas I don't remember why I axed that question to be honest. But it seems like something that I'd like to watch.

[@winxalex1]

You can find Flash version of source here winxalex.blogspot.com/2013/05/colt-shooting-starling-2d-platformer.html

[@dvisamse]

super cool !

[@iwantcoolname]

where can one download tree code from around 5:40 ?

[@ChrisAthanas]

You can recreate it pretty easily

[@admi712]

03:44 what program to use?

[@ysy69]

inspiring