Future of Coding - Welcome to the Future of Coding
Episode Date: July 14, 2017Hi, I'm Steve Krouse. Welcome to my podcast and open-journal research project to create the future of coding. I believe the tools we currently use to create software can be drastically impro...ved. Join me on my journey to discover the future of coding. Every week I alternate between recapping my own research and talking with programming language and interface experts. You can follow my progress at futureofcoding.org.Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/futureofcodingSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Welcome to the future of coding. This is Steve Krause.
None of us are born programmers. We all come to coding as beginners.
We learn about zero-indexed arrays, where to put our parentheses, and the terminal commands needed to run our code.
But before long, all of the hardships we went through learning to code become second nature.
That's part of what it means to become a programmer. And the better you become at programming, the harder it becomes to see all
the ways coding can be made better. My experience was no different. After I learned to code, I didn't
spend too much time thinking about my languages and tools. I just learned them and then used them.
But then I took the red pill. For me, it came in the form of Brett Victor's learnable programming essay.
Brett demonstrated how programming currently hinders,
but if built right could enable, programmers in our key tasks,
following the flow of a program,
understanding how the state of the program changes,
grasping the program's vocabulary,
creating iteratively through reacting,
and building maintainable
programs through abstraction. Then I watched Brett Victor's The Future of Programming talk.
Holy shit. We created all of these languages. We kept making them better, from binary to assembly,
to Fortran, to C, to Python, but then we stopped. We haven't jumped a level of abstraction in decades. Why? I refuse
to believe that it's because there's nothing left to improve. We can do better. Let's keep going.
The vast majority of programmers don't think about these things. They see the tools they use
as a given. They don't waste much time wondering if or how things could be better. Things are the
way they are. The vast majority of programmers accept the
status quo, work within it, and go home. This podcast is not for such people. This podcast is
for the dissatisfied, the complainers, the whiners. For the programmers that obstinately refuse to
settle for the crappy excuse that we call programming today in 2017. This podcast is for
the small minority of programmers that know things can be better,
and not incrementally better, but drastically better.
Through these conversations, I hope to bring together a community of programmers
committed to making the future of programming bright.
We don't have to plot and plan in isolation.
We are not lone nuts, but a part of a small committed group of dreamers
striving to make our small corner of
the universe a better place. My plan is to release new content every Tuesday, alternating between
interviews and solo episodes, talking about the state of my own research into the future of coding.
The interviews will be with people who have a strong vision for the future of programming,
including researchers and developers of programming languages, tools, libraries,
and frameworks.
I want to allow my guests the space to go deep on these complex topics,
so I estimate that these interviews will run about 90 minutes each.
The solo episodes will be me summarizing my research over the prior two weeks.
I'll talk about the papers, products, and prototype I've been playing with,
and release the links to these on the website, futureofcoding.org, so that you can see them for yourself.
Please reach out if you have something to contribute to this conversation.
I have a long list of people I'd love to get on here,
but I'm sure there are many more that belong here that I'm not aware of yet.
You can get in touch with me on Twitter via my handle, at Steve Krause.
If you like these conversations to keep happening,
please tell your friends, blog about it, subscribe, or leave a review.
Whether or not I continue for Season 2 depends on your support.
Thanks so much for joining us, and I will see you next week.