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by Ivan Reese, Jimmy Miller, and Lu Wilson
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- 1 weeks ago2h 9m
Technical Dimensions of Feedback in Live Programming Systems by Josh Horowitz
This episode is about the paper Technical Dimensions of Feedback in Live Programming Systems by Josh Horowitz. [THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK] [SERIOUSLY, IF YOU WANT SOMETHING HERE, WRITE IT YOURSELF] [NO PROMISES. MAKE IT GOOD] It's a solid episode — that's my take. You should listen to it instead of reading about it. And then give us your take. Links $ Gang, I'm sorry this episode is months late. It was a real doozy! But also, the bonus episodes over on our Patreon have been getting wildly ambitious. I did an insanely edited 54-minute video about The Browser Company. We had William Taysom over to share a deep critical analysis of The Witness. Jimmy and I shared what we'd do with our lives if we weren't doing computer stuff. And most recently, we spilled the design tea on two recent projects we've been working on — Jimmy's Whiteboard visual programming system, and Tenfold from Ink & Switch. If you like the FoC podcast, you'll get so much more of it for $5/month at feelingoff.com. Audio Hijack — this is the program we use to record the podcast. It has "Canadian Juice", which is a joke only Lu will get, but Lu isn't going to read this. But you all know what "juice" is, right? It's what Andrew Blinn does better than anyone, and he IS reading this. He fucking better be. Am I narrowcasting? Jimmy mentioned Notes from the Underground. I haven't read it, so I can't add snark. Sorry. We're making backend changes! Stay tuned. The new website for this podcast will be feelingof.com. You should check out that website, cool stuff there, and they have a podcast. The Hest podcast, which Ivan has always self-hosted (so to speak), is, basically, 38 episodes of Ivan describing what he's devoting his life to, one episode about the combat loop of the video game Death Stranding, and one episode about getting smaller and smaller forever, but make it music and about Ivan's misspent youth. If you're reading this and you haven't listened to it, what the hell are you doing! You'll love it so much! PlayBook is the project that the Programmable Ink folks at Ink & Switch have been working on since January 2024. Ivan is one of those folks. I'm one of those Ivans. Specifically, this is "the show notes writing Ivan". Have you met? He writes the show notes. I commentate on his work. This… paper(!)… was originally presented as a talk at LIVE PROG — which is almost a FOUR FOUR — in 2024 as a talk called Definitions & Dimensions of Liveness. Jimmy and Lu and I were in the room! Maybe that's the last time we'll ever be in the room. (Did you listen to the free 2025 holiday spectacular?) You sat along the fire… you saw the light… you saw. You're Sigur Rós, you're so. Why am I crying? Inventing on Principle — do we need to link to this? If you're reading these show notes and you haven't watched this talk, email hello@feelingof.com and I'll give you a virtual hug because you're listening to our podcast without getting, like, any of the jokes? Observable — same snark as previous Projection Boxes — now this one, I hadn't heard of, but if you have heard of it reach out and tell me about it so that I can be in on our jokes. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wi
- Jan 14, 20262h 33m
The Computer is a Feeling by Tim Hwang & Omar Rizwan
We've renamed the podcast and community — we are now the Feeling of Computing! Here are some thoughts about the motivation to rename and the choice of new name. It's a small change, but it feels meaningful and clarifying. The new name better fits what we've been doing all along, and sets us up for the next decade of this community. The new name reminded us of The Computer is a Feeling, a document (of some definition) by Tim Hwang and Omar Rizwan. Unlike our usual selections, which are crouton-dry and tiring, this one is basically a 1-pager, quick and fun — you should totally give it a glance and see what you make of it, before Jimmy and I tease it apart and lawyer over the many nuances. This piece makes us question what the computer means in our lives, and how that may have changed over time. Light on specifics and arguably steeped in nostalgic yearning, its series of declarative statements come out more like broadly probing questions. Is the computer feeling possessed only by those who remember the time before the internet? Are computers even required? What does feeling this feeling elicit one to do? We answer at least one of these questions. "But you can't trust them, they're podcasters," said everyone ever, "you've got to feel it for yourself." Links $ While these main Feeling of Computing episodes are, in a word, infrequent, the bonus episodes over on our Patreon — Feeling Off — arrive at a dependable regularity! Why, in the time since we recorded this here episode, we've released two (2) bonus episodes. The first was a unruly deep tangent Jimmy and I fell upon right smack in the middle of this very episode, and then excised out — That's Shakespeare — about code.org, whether the "everyone should learn to code" movement is actually about literacy, the backlash to this movement, and our personal feelings on it all. Then in December we shared our annual end-of-the-year spectacular with games, awards, music, spelling, men who are spiders, and our predictions about the near and distant future — All of the False Ones — free free free for download, no patronage required. The old name is cursed. The old name might have been inspired by Bret Victor's talk The Future of Programming, but the vibe of the community is probably closer to Inventing on Principle. The new name invites us to reflect on the way our tools make us feel. For instance, Kid Pix was a quirky, playful drawing program designed for younger users which had its heyday in the 1990s when Ivan was a younger user, and it gave him some pretty specific feelings at the time. (Also, in the time since recording this episode, Ivan dug up a Snow Leopard iMac from the sedimentary rock and installed KidPix Studio 4, and his 6 year-old daughter has been having a blast with it.) One Piece is a manga and anime that's pretty popular, but perhaps off-topic for our community. Did you know about our virtual meetups? Every month we have people showing off their work, and it's been fantastic to see the wild variety of creative programming projects built by members of our community. We share the details of upcoming meetups in the #announcements channel on our Slack, and publish them in this Luma calendar. You should come! The feeling is still present, in your time, as it was in ours You can build computers out of water, if you want Sim City 3000 was released in 1999, and gave Jimmy the computer feeling. (Ivan played Sim City 2000 back in 1997-ish, and got pretty good at typing the word "FUND", before learning that this didn't actually give you free money and instead gave you a bond.) When Ivan says "go to six
- Sep 27, 20251h 53m
Let's Take Esoteric Programming Languages Seriously
One of the biggest goals of this show — our raisin detour, if you will — is to encourage people to look at computer programming differently. It's not just a job, or a way to make the computer do what you want. Code isn't just the material you sculpt into apps and games and websites. The very act of programming itself, and the languages we make and use to do that programming, reflect who we are as people. Programming languages say something. Esolangs — esoteric programming languages — are programming languages created for these more self-reflective purposes. To some, they're defined by what they're not: not for serious use, not for education, not for efficiency. To others, they're a bunch of funny jokes that people can commiserate through after suffering the steep learning curve of becoming a programmer. A few find in them an opportunity to explore strange computational models, or baffling syntax designs. But is there more to them? Could there be? In this episode, we're discussing a preprint of the paper Let's Take Esoteric Programming Languages Seriously by Jeremy Singer and Steve Draper, and struggling with what it even means to give esoteric languages their due. Links $ Each of these episodes is a labour of love. If you appreciate that labour, slip us a five on Patreon. As is the norm, you'll get a second RSS feed with a bonus episode each and ev-er-y month. Except this month, there's actually two (2) bonus episodes, for the simple reason that this podcast swells with bubbles of hot waxy fluid that spill the container of my Ableton Live when they pop. The first pop is a half hour cut from this esolangs ep, the three of us brainstorming esolangs we'd enjoy, super casual and playful, perfect for building your parasocial podcast relationship, you'll love it. The second bonus, as I'm sure you've been expecting, is three hours of Jimmy and I relaying our experiences with Silksong, unpacking its few contentious design decisions, fawning over exquisite details, the good shit. So yeah, hand us one hundred nickles, help Ivan repair his basement, enjoy more of… whatever this is. Daniel Temkin 🛌 😴💤😘 esoteric.codes Daniel's new book, Forty-Four Esolangs Joana Chicau The Less Humble Programmer Esolangs Wiki Entropy, an esolang by (total dreamboat) Daniel Temkin Unnecessary, the 4:33 of esolangs, by Keymaker Turing Paint by Byron Knoll, which is similar to Brian Silverman's Wireworldand Lu's Cableworld Ivan's Visual Programming Codex, a collection of all the cool visual programming things Ivan has come across in his travels. Riskopoly — The Game of Capitalist Imperialism! Fanny#In_slang Brainfuck and Whitespace are two canonical esolangs. Our episode on Structure of a Programming Language Revolution, which includes extended discussion of Ivan's father-in-law's lookalike. Dreamberd is one of Lu's Esoteric programming languages, which has a (let's just say) "interesting" relationship with AI. The Story of Mel Piet, Befunge, and Malbolge are more classic, oft-cited esolangs. Fractran deserves special mention, since the language is comprised entirely of fractions, which is pretty neat. MarkovJunior also deserves special mention. Seriously, go look at the examples. Wild stuff. It's by Maxim Gumin, who also did the famous <a href="https://github.com/mxgmn/WaveFun
- Jul 22, 20251h 59m
As We May Think by Vannevar Bush
A classic "80-year predictions" episode. How did we do, humanity? Here's the article (free with ads): As We May Think Links $ Patreon We're considering changing The Name of the FoC community, podcast, et cetera. Transatlantic Accent, and all the ships at sea. This episode's advertisements: Ex-Lax, Mifflin, et cetera. The New Media Reader is a good read(er). Blue Prince is surely everyone's 2025 GOTY. You'll find ample discussion of its twisty design in our bonus feed. Oppenheimer was probably my least favourite David Nolen movie. ENIAC was, for a time, the computer. Engelbart The Polaroid instant camera dates back to the 1940s! Google Glass and Ray-Ban Meta, sigh Wikipedia's List of Existing Technologies Predicted in Science Fiction Apparently microfilm and microfiche are both instances of microform. Boy Milk, no explanation needed. Sean M. Carroll, physicist. Claude Shannon, information theorist ;) AI Is Not Your Friend appeared in The Atlantic on May 9th, 2025. Amazon Mechanical Turk is "artificial artificial intelligence". Awesome GitHub lists Daring Fireball and Kottke.org are two long-running blogs that helped popularize the "linkblog" form. The Wirecutter was our previous top pick for product recommendations, but their history of shilling junk and our growing concerns about e-waste have led us to downgrade them in our rankings. Devine (the other Lu) maintains a pair of wikis, one for hundredrabbits and another for research and projects. Alexander Obenauer also does a lovely job publishing research notes. Unison and Dynamicland are two strong visions for the future of computing. Music: lemon (tussed/screwed because everyone listens at 2x) ! Send us email, join the FoC community, and find us on-line: I: 🐘 🦋 🌐 J: 🐘 🦋 🌐 K: N/A L: 🐘 🦋 🌐 See you in the future! https://futureofcoding.org/episodes/077Su
- Apr 27, 20252h 11m
Computing Machinery and Intelligence by Alan Turing (feat. Felienne Hermans)
You know Alan Turing, right? And the Turing test? Have you actually read the paper that introduced it, Computing Machinery and Intelligence? No?! You… you are not prepared. With very special guest: Felienne Hermans Notes $ Patreon Mystery AI Hype Theatre 3000 podcast, from Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna. "Always read the footnotes" [The Language Game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_game_(philosophy) by Ludwig Wittgenstein Can Machines Think? by W. "Billy" Mays Lu's paper with Dave Ackley, Dialogues on Natural Code describes how the symbiote will spread to consume all of humanity. Reclaiming AI as a Theoretical Tool for Cognitive Science by Iris van Rooij et al. Ned Block's Blockhead Nick Cave's thoughts on AI song lyrics. For instance: "Writing a good song is not mimicry, or replication, or pastiche, it is the opposite. […] It is the breathless confrontation with one’s vulnerability, one’s perilousness, one’s smallness, pitted against a sense of sudden shocking discovery; it is the redemptive artistic act that stirs the heart of the listener, where the listener recognizes in the inner workings of the song their own blood, their own struggle, their own suffering." What Computers Can't Do by Hubert Dryfus Wittgenstein on Rules by Saul Kripke Is chess the drosophila of artificial intelligence? by Nathan Ensmenger Computers as Theatre by Brenda Laurel ! Send us email, especially questions or topics you'd like us to discuss on future episodes, share your wildest ideas in the Slack, and: IVAN: 🐘 🦋 🌐 JIMM: 🐘 🦋 🌐 TODE: 🐘 🦋 🌐 FELI: 🐘 🦋 🌐 See you in the future! https://futureofcoding.org/episodes/076Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/feelingofcomputingSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
- Feb 16, 20252h 4m
A Case for Feminism in Programming Language Design by Felienne Hermans
In the academic field of programming language research, there are a few prestigious conferences that you must present at to advance in your career. These conferences are rather selective about which presentations they'll accept. If your research work involves proving formal properties about a programming language, you'll have their ear. But if your work looks at, say, the human factors of language design, you might as well not bother applying — and thus, not bother pursuing that work in the first place. Why is the formalistic, systems-focused work elevated, and the human-focused work diminished? And what are the downstream consequences, the self-reinforcing feedback loops that come from this narrow focus? In this episode we discuss a paper by Felienne Hermans and Ari Schlesinger titled, A case for Feminism in Programming Language Design. It applies the lens of intersectional feminism to reveal a startling lack of "Yes, and…" in academic computer science, where valuable avenues of inquiry are closed off, careers are stifled, and people are unintentionally driven away from contributing to the field, simply because their passions and expertise don't conform to a set of invisible expectations. Through heartbreaking personal anecdotes and extensive supporting references, the paper makes the case that there's a lot of high-value greenfield work to be done, and people who would love to do it — but we will need to collectively identify, understand, and then fix a few broken incentives before it'll happen. Notes $ Patreon Polypad, dubbed the "best piece of education software for smartboards" by published academic Luke Wilson Or is it Mathigon? "Looks like a nice Desmos", opines enterprise sales expert Ivan Reese. Market💡Facts.ca Hedy, a multi-lingual programming environment for the classroom created by Felienne. Welcome to the TALK BLOC: Felienne Hermans at Onward! 2024: A case for Feminism in Programming Language Design Ivan and Alex Warth at LIVE 2024: Inkling Lu at LIVE 2024: Arroost Lu at Onward! 2024: Dialogs on Natural Code Discovering Your Software Umwelt by Rebecca Wirfs-Brock, Allen Wirfs-Brock, and Jordan Wirfs-Brock A New Cognitive Perspective on Simplicity in System and Product Design by FoC community member and previous bonus episode guest, Stefan Lesser Redressing the Balance: A Yin-Yang Perspective on Information Technology by FoC community member Konrad Hinsen Foremost among the contributions to society by Icebergs are their inspiration of the meme Alex McLean as in Insane in the Membrane FOUR FOUR Mary Shaw, previous guest Zachtronics make some hard puzzle games. Define Define, a really great video about that. Oh, you question toxic masculinity, yet you live within the gender binary? ! Send us email, especially if you're an avid listener who happens to work for a placement agency and knows an AI thought leader who has advised 5000 startups and would be a great fit for our show, share your ideas in the <a href="https://
- Jan 5, 20252h 12m
Is the Whole Universe a Computer?
"Is the whole universe a computer?", ask Jack Copeland, Mark Sprevak, and Oron Shagrir in chapter 41 of the book The Turing Guide. They split this question in two, first asking whether the universe itself is a computer, then whether the universe could even be computed. These are lofty, unanswerable questions, sure, but they encroach on our territory — philosophy, automata, nonsense. So, in our usual reverent style and with attentive pacing, the three of us explore the paper, the questions, the answers they choose to highlight, and even share a few perfectly reasonable answers of our own. Links $ Patreon In no particular order: Carl Sagan What it means to be open was Lu's talk at Heart of Clojure Rudy Rucker Is the brain a digital computer? by John Searle The Plankth of time. C is Not a Low-Level Language by David Chisnall The Connection Machine!! Komgloverav… Komolgorov… Outer Worlds? Outer Wilds? The Witness Music featured in this episode: No! That's a spoiler. No way I'm telling you. ! Send us email, share your ideas in the Slack, and catch us while you still can: Carl: Mastodon • Website Jimmy: Mastodon • Website Lu: Mastodon • Website See you in the future! https://futureofcoding.org/episodes/74Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/feelingofcomputingSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
- Aug 25, 20242h 44m
Moving Beyond Syntax: Lessons from 20 Years of Blocks Programming in AgentSheets by Alexander Repenning
Alexander Repenning created AgentSheets, an environment to help kids develop computational thinking skills. It wrapped an unusual computational model with an even more unusual user interface. The result was divisive. It inspired so many other projects, whilst being rejected at every turn and failing to catch on the way Scratch later did. So in 2017, Repenning published this obit of a paper, Moving Beyond Syntax: Lessons from 20 Years of Blocks Programming in AgentSheets, which covers his findings over the years as AgentSheets evolved and transformed, and gives perspective on block-based programming, programming-by-example, agents / rule / rewrite systems, automata, and more. This is probably the most "normal" episode we've done in a while — we stay close to the text and un-clam many a thought-tickling pearl. I'm saying that sincerely now to throw you off our scent the next time we get totally lost in the weeds. I hear a clock ticking. Links $ Do you want to move beyond syntax? Frustrated by a lack of syntactic, semantic, or pragmatic support? Join our Patreon! Choose the tier that best reflects your personal vision of the future of coding. Get (frequently unhinged) monthly bonus content. Most of all: let us know that you enjoy this thing we do, and help us keep doing it for years to come. Argos, for our non-UK listeners. They were acquired by future TodePond sponsor, Sainsbury's. Once again, I am asking for your Marcel Goethals makes a lot of cool weird stuff and is a choice follow. Scratch isn't baby programming. Also, you should try this bizarre game Ivan programmed in 3 blocks of Scratch. Sandspiel Studio is a delightful block-based sand programming simulator automata environment. Here's a video of Lu and Max introducing it. Simple Made Easy, a seminal talk by Rich Hickey. Still hits, all these years later. Someday we'll do an episode on speech acts. Rewrite rules are one example of rewriting in computing. Lu's talk —and I quote— "at Cellpond", was actually at SPLASH, about Cellpond, and it's a good talk, about —and I quote— "actually, what if they didn't give up on rewrite rules at this point in history and what if they went further?" Oh yeah — Cellpond is cool. Here's a video showing you how it works. And here's a video studying how that video works. And here's a secret third thingthat bends into a half-dimension. Here's Repenning's "rule-bending" paper: Bending the Rules: Steps Toward Semantically Enriched Graphical Rewrite Rules I don't need to link to SimCity, right? You all know SimCity? Will Wright is, arguably, the #1 name in simulation games. Well, you might not have caught the fantastic article Model Metropolis that unpacks the (inadvertently?) libertarian ideology embodied within the design of its systems. I'd also be remiss not to link to Polygon's video (and the corresponding write-up), which lend a little more colour to the history. Couldn't find a good link to Blox Pascal, which appears in the paper Towards "Second Generation" Interactive, Graphical Programming Environments by Ephraim P. Glinert, which I also couldn't find a good link to. Projectional / Structural Editor.
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About Feeling of Computing
A romp through the field of computer programming, grapling with our history and wondering what should come next. A mix of deeply technical talk, philosophy, art, dark lore, and good takes. Hosted by Ivan Reese, Jimmy Miller, and Lu Wilson.
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