On 16/02/12 15:51, karl ramberg wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 9:38 AM, Derek O'Connell<doc at doconnel.f9.co.uk>  wrote:
>> Long video but should be of interest to Squeakers...
>>
>> Video: https://vimeo.com/36579366
>>
>> Reddit post:
>> http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/ppnlg/inventing_on_principle_bret_victor_shows_what/
>>
>> Bret Victors site: http://worrydream.com/
>>
> I saw this video yesterday and though about Thing Lab
> http://www.cs.washington.edu/research/constraints/videos/thinglab-1978.mov

Yes it's amazing how long these ideas have been around. I remember Open 
University broadcasts from the 70/80's entitled "Visualisation & Direct 
Manipulation" along the same lines (but focused on data IIRC). Bret does 
a good job of demo'ing the concept with concrete examples, although I 
particularly like his point about supporting "ideas". Maybe this area is 
getting reborn for the touchy-feely tablet age :-)

> I understad how he can change number types with a slider and other
> simple value types but if the system has a object of some kind as a
> variable value
> it must be harder to direkt manipulate. He would need a Inspector. It
> would be like programming in de Smalltalk debugger with Inspectors on
> objects :-)
>
> Karl
>

Possibly combined with code to detect context (eg, what is selected) 
bring up an appropriate manipulator and trigger post-change actions, 
avoiding actual typing where possible. The time-series feature of the 
game demo looks more tricky. Guess it's a case of carefully picking your 
battles since, as some people are quick to point out, this type of 
interaction might not be practical in some cases.

-D