Apps and programming: two accidental tyrannies On coding agents, malleable software, and the future of interface invention

⭐ New talk! Watch / read / visually skim here: andymatuschak.org/tat

Coding agents might help us finally break out of two cages: the app model, which traps computing in one-size-fits-all silos; and programming as a specialization, which has crowded out cultures of imagination and domain insight.

Why yes, I worked with Steve at a tech company long before he became an early blogger...He had anger management issues when things didn't go his way.

Structured Programming with go to Statements | ACM Computing Surveys You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.

Have you read Knuth's 1974 Computing Surveys paper on gotos. He provides some history.

dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...

A line drawing of the IBM 701's "main frame", showing its physical dimensions and how the frame swings open. The drawing is dated 3-4-53. The drawing is from the document "Type 701 EDPM Installation Manual", obtained from the Computer History Museum archives.

What is the origin of the word "mainframe"? Digging through archives, I traced it back to 1953. The IBM 701 computer was built from "frames": power frames, a storage frame, a drum frame, and the main frame. This 1953 drawing from the Installation Manual shows the dimensions of the "main frame". 1/n

Century-Scale Storage If you had to store something for 100 years, how would you do it?

Incredible essay about the importance and challenges of digital archival by @maxy.bsky.social, as well as the various imperfect strategies to achieve “century-scale” digital archives.

lil.law.harvard.edu/century-scal...

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