Bret Victor: Learnable Programming

I keep thinking a lot of Bret's points are absolutely wonderful food for thought, but blur the line between tool and use of a tool so much that they will never be practical. It is as if he's taking the outcome and suggesting the language should have known the outcome, but the point of coding is to enable all kinds of possible outcomes, and that set is not quantifiable before the fact.

except the computer can and does run the code, and can then provide super-textual information

Couple random thoughts:

1. Is Bret Victor now the Linus of cutting-edge programming environments?

2. I don't have enough experience with Light Table or the Khan Academy environment to know whether Khan is just a first step on the way to something like Bret's vision, or more of a diversion. I was fairly impressed with the Khan env in my limited time with it.

3. I HATE telling people they shouldn't speak their mind and/or say what they think is the truth, and I don't think Bret shouldn't have written anything. But it's difficult not to seem ungracious. Josh Resig clearly knows what he's doing, at least in the general sense, and he was gushing with praise for Bret, while this reply basically says John did everything wrong.

If Bret feels that way, I truly believe he should say it, but that doesn't make it fun. This is the essay equivalent of cringe humor I guess. Hilarious/Informative while making you feel bad.

Mandatory 'subtext' (from Jonathan Edwards) links

  - http://www.subtextual.org/
  - http://alarmingdevelopment.org/?p=680
  - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subtext_%28programming_language%29

I wonder if those two know each other.

The way to read this is not a neg on the Khan academy project but a push into what Bret sees as the absolute solution to the problem being solved. Ie. a new programming language, which is outside the scope of Khans project of teaching.