
Dynamicland: The Next Big Thing Is a Room - stevekrouse
https://phenomenalworld.org/metaresearch/the-next-big-thing-is-a-room
======
skadamat
I had the pleasure of visiting Dynamicland and hanging out with Peter Norvig,
Nicky Case and many others. There's a few things that stuck out for me:

\- _The community!_ Most people I interacted with were pretty inter-
disciplinary. Some came from an education heavy background, others from a more
programming language background. Some from interface design, others from
physical installation or video game background (and everything in between).
Everyone had their own degree of skepticism but were excited by the
discussions that were happening (a sign of a good research culture!).

\- _The representations_ : What excites me the most about Dynamicland is that
it's an environment for fostering unique representations of ideas. The
cultural forces & ideas (social programming, remixing, visible state / code at
all times, 3d environment, etc) baked into the space encourage the
experimentation & creation of new ways of representing complex ideas. Some
scattered examples here -
[https://twitter.com/dynamicland1?lang=en](https://twitter.com/dynamicland1?lang=en)

\- _Removal of artificial barriers_ : When programming on a computer these
days, there's so many barriers to doing simple things. The amount of code that
exists to do virtual actions in a virtual world is MASSIVE, and acts as a huge
barrier. This is something Bret talks about at the end of his interview on
Postlight ([https://postlight.com/trackchanges/podcast/computing-is-
ever...](https://postlight.com/trackchanges/podcast/computing-is-everywhere)).
Because code / programs in Dynamicland are embodied in the room, you don't
need code to move a dialog box or a slider around. You just moved it yourself.
This is super powerful and it means your code can focus on the actual
computation itself, not on virtual UI movement. Eventually, Dynamicland will
have robotics to automate moving of objects, but this already is a great
start.

\- _Moving around_ : Moving around, even if it's just around a table, is
AWESOME. We're so used to sitting (or standing) at a desk and staying still
that we don't get to take advantage of embodied intelligence. We think in SO
many different ways, and our "thinking" doesn't just happen in the head. Our
arms, legs, stomach, and feet all contribute to the thinking process. Combine
that with multi-sensory representations that live across all of these channels
and you can explore a thought & idea space SO quickly and uniquely. This is so
hard to describe and under-rated. This link
([http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesi...](http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/))
and this talk
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agOdP2Bmieg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agOdP2Bmieg))
attempt to do these ideas justice but it's quite hard to transfer this
context!

~~~
picometer
Is it possible to visit Dynamicland as a random interested person? I'm on
their mailing list and couldn't make the open house last spring - maybe
they'll have another one at some point.

~~~
skadamat
I made a small donation to Dynamicland and then requested to come by as part
of that.

~~~
copperx
How big does that donation have to be, if I may ask?

~~~
skadamat
I have no idea to be honest. I just gave a nominal amount, think it was like a
hundred dollars. I would happily give a LOT more if I had stronger financial
means / if I thought it would actually have an impact.

It seems like they're mostly seeking funding from larger institutions, as
crowd-funding such a large research effort isn't really feasible or
sustainable.

------
kbenson
_When I visited Dynamicland in January, I was building on a spreadsheet-like
program next to my friend Omar who was building a map-based interface. Just by
virtue of sitting next to each other, we were able to keep apprised of what
the other was up to. At some point Omar needed a way to input a number to
control the zoom of his map. My spreadsheet program had plenty of numbers, and
ways to manipulate numbers, so we slid over one of my pieces of paper and it
immediately worked to zoom into his maps. Omar decided that he’d prefer a
slider-based number-input, and after it was built, he slid it over to my side
of the table, and we used a multiplication operator I had built to expand the
slider’s range. Again, it just worked. At Dynamicland you get composability
and interoperability “for free.”_

I jumped around a skimmed a bit, so maybe I missed it, but are they
prrogramming for the room itself only, or in a framework/library that allows
for this, or just in a similar language? Is it all just Javascript and a well
defined hierarchy of objects that can be manipulated?

How do two people, working on two separate programs, share implemented
functions "for free"? The sliding across the desk portion is irrelevant (well,
it's cool, but for this specific question it's no different than sharing a
gist link I think), what I'm wondering is the _details_.

~~~
stevekrouse
Omar's article has all those details for you [https://rsnous.com/posts/notes-
from-dynamicland-geokit/](https://rsnous.com/posts/notes-from-dynamicland-
geokit/)

~~~
kbenson
Ah, thanks. For those following along, the details (from what I've found so
far) seem to indicate a language they've developed at Dynamiclab for this,
Realtalk is used and embeds the idea of the whole platform (papers that can be
both sources and targets of information/code) into itself, and how they
interact with each other.

So, yes it's a shared language, and yes, it's a shared framework (the language
embeds the framework concepts as first class entities in how it functions.
That makes sense, and it also explains how some output display function (which
would be fairly generic in this context) would be easily shareable, and by the
nature of the platform, also immediately shareable if done in a certain way.

It is similar in concept to how Javascript ona webpage has access to the dom,
and the bindings for the dom can be expected, so you can write something that
transforms a <table> in some way, and expect it to function similarly is other
tables are provided. But it might be even more accurate to say it's like CSS,
where CSS and the DOM are so closely linked that (at least from the
perspective of CSS, if not HTML elements in specific) there is no interop
layer, CSS is meant to apply to an HTML document, so it's designed with that
in mind and the interop layers are for the most part nonexistent.

So, in that respect Realtalk is sort of like CSS (with more programmability, I
think) for this environment of sheets of paper that support input and output.
Very cool.

------
bluefiddleleaf
"Light is not a device we charge up and carry around in our pockets. Imagine
how much dimmer that world would be: people carrying flashlights, shooting
small cones of light wherever they go. It would be a small, lonely, personal
world, a world where we only get to see one thing at a time, a world where one
of your hands is always full with an electronic gadget." Nicely said

~~~
mattnewport
I think it's more accurate to say light is not _only_ a device we charge up
and carry around in our pockets. I do in fact always carry a flashlight in my
pocket and use it fairly regularly and many people use their smartphone as a
makeshift flashlight from time to time even if they don't carry a dedicated
flashlight. I imagine the extended analogy would likely hold: if Dynamicland
type technology becomes common I expect it would co-exist with more
traditional computing as well as other newer tech like VR/AR.

------
ilaksh
Sounds terrific. However, it feels like a lot of what they have achieved is
marketing existing ideas that were already great, with improved packaging, but
in a way that ultimately isn't practical.

Because truly plug-and-play components are an awesome idea. However they are
not a new idea at all. As far as I can tell the real reason they are not more
popular is because us programmers are worried we will be accused of being
users if we use tools that are interactive. See Visual Basic 6 (which was an
amazing system). Of course programmers do not realize this psychological issue
exists and will not admit it is a possibility.

But in the context of Bret Victor's lab with the projectors and little pieces
of paper, that puts plug and play components in a different category that
makes them more palatable.

Also, projector based AR is much more convenient for people to demo than HMDs,
but also not very practical for widespread deployment. But AR is amazing in
general and this allows them a friction free way to demo its power with
components.

But I think that multiplayer real-time collaborative interactive component
based AR programming should definitely be a more common thing. It combines the
advantages of all of those techniques. I also think though that all of those
things are useful in lesser combinations. I believe a big part of the reason
at least some of those things are not used more or more effectively is
cultural or psychological rather than technical or practical.

The thing is the more you take advantage of components and interactivity the
less you use the complex colored encoded text. That means programmers can
spend a significant amount of time snapping together components and
configuring them. Unfortunately programmers are not able to recognize this as
programming. We have a feeling the more we do it the more we may lose our
special incanter status and be classified as users.

~~~
yepguy
> us programmers are worried we will be accused of being users if we use tools
> that are interactive. [...] Of course programmers do not realize this
> psychological issue exists and will not admit it is a possibility.

It would be nice if you explained what you even mean by this instead of just
claiming that programmers who don't agree are in denial.

What programmer is embarrassed to also be a user? And programmers use
interactive tools all time. REPLs, debuggers, editors, GUI design tools, and
live-reloading web servers all qualify in my book.

~~~
yepguy
Also keep in mind that when you stack abstractions on top of each other, the
whole stack gets more brittle. So if you want me to use your better idea, it
shouldn't abstract over the thing you're trying to replace.

To give an example: if you want to replace hierarchical filesystems you
shouldn't build a thing that hides them from me, you should build a thing that
doesn't use them at all. (This isn't a hard rule, sometimes exceptions are
worth the trade-off.)

Understandably, this means changing things is a LOT more work than you're
probably prepared for. Don't assume that we're only stuck in the past for bad
reasons.

------
delinka
Can I build a Dynamicland clone in my area? That'd be excellent. For all the
press this thing gets (from time to time), I still see neither designs, plans,
nor code that I can use. Is this because Bret Victor shares _ideas_ and
expects that if the world finds them valuable, they'll implement their own? Or
is there another motivation to hold this close?

Maybe someone has to build an Open competitor so that we can address problems
mentioned by other commenters. Maybe I'll do that here in my hometown and
share it with everyone.

~~~
stevekrouse
Jan Paul beat you to it
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16211516](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16211516)

------
brador
Shut Dynamicland down and focus all Bretts and the rest of the teams energy on
building these collab interaction ideas into AR.

Dynamicland has 2 components - the paper and projector idea which is bad, and
the interactive OS and systems which are fantastic. Replace the paper and
projector with AR glasses and you have a winner.

AR allows exactly what you want - real time dynamic collab 3d interactions.
Paper does not. It's 2D, flat, limited, with occlusion. You've just taken 2D
screens and reversed the light source.

Dynamicland is a sunk cost. Drop it fast. Move to AR.

~~~
koonsolo
I was thinking the same thing. Does this technology offers anything more than
AR? It seems the answer is no, unless you really don't want any glasses on
your face.

~~~
totalin1
Brett has a thing with actually holding what we are interacting with. He
believes that the sense of touch and how our fingers evolved isn't being used
by any computing medium yet.. Further like the article mentions, immersing
into total virtual worlds shall leave our bodies immobile

~~~
brador
Finger tracking and finger haptics both have good working prototypes in AR.

I'm talking above about full body standalone/wireless headset AR (like magic
leap) not "point your phone camera at a QR card" AR. Full body is active and
immersive. You can jump, run, turn around, and it tracks and models the 3D
space around you in real time. It really is something special, and Bretts
talents in dynamic collaboration are exactly what is needed in this new tech
field.

Instead he's huddled under projectors pinning paper QR codes to chipboard like
it's 1980 when he could and should be pushing the frontier of interaction and
design where his work can make a huge difference.

------
resg4mp
Everything old is new again.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laApNiNpnvI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laApNiNpnvI)
(Xerox EuroParc 1991)

~~~
skadamat
It's funny you say that. This is something Alan Kay talks about at length. For
example, watch the first 20 mins of this talk -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvmTSpJU-
Xc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvmTSpJU-Xc)

Essentially, he asserts that computing (or computer science even) isn't a real
field (like biology or physics). Most people can't name the early computing
pioneers whose work they build on (not true in Physics or Biology, we
celebrate the pioneers) nor are they familiar with the work that was done in
the Xerox PARC days.

It's gotten so bad that a lot of computer science research just assumes that
what we have now is what's going to remain forever. In the 70's, all kinds of
interesting ideas and experiments were tried.

Hardware implemented VM's, direct manipulation programming, OS-free computing
environments, highly re-configurable computing a la FPGA's, and hundreds more.

Nowadays, we think that creating custom ASIC to run machine learning
algorithms quicker is innovative and novel.

All this to say that many of the ideas in Dynamicland aren't new. They're
rooted in ideas that are decades old. If you look at Bret's papers he uses as
references frequently, you'll notice how many of them are over 10 years old -
[http://worrydream.com/refs/](http://worrydream.com/refs/)

~~~
m_mueller
Just a personal anecdote, I gave a talk about D. C. Engelbart last week to my
research group and none of them knew him beforehand.

~~~
skadamat
Then you'd especially love Alan's talk!

------
baxtr
This seems to be the next Xerox Parc! I tried to find some explanatory Videos
but wasn’t successful. Has anyone some links to this highly intriguing
experiment?

------
l0b0
Physical computing sounds like an incredibly limiting environment, like using
FrontPage rather than HTML, CSS and JavaScript. How do you do anything
abstract on a platform like this? How do you i integrate any two arbitrary
pieces of software? How do you apply basic programming practices such as
functional (as opposed to copy/paste) reuse? Or do you end up modifying code
the 95% of the time the abstraction hinders rather than helps?

I really hope this isn't how we teach programming to the next generation,
because it will severely limit their understanding of what makes programming
great.

~~~
dwaltrip
I would look at this at opening up a new additional way of computing, not
limiting how computing works in general.

------
mettamage
I wish I could work with people who are as interdisciplinary as this team. As
an interdisciplinarian myself (psychology, busses, computer science and game-
design) I need a place to belong and shine creatively.

------
Animats
The Sony Xperia Touch ought to be able to do this. That's a nice projector-
based touch system.

Possible application: interactive restaurant menus. Some places have tried
handing out tablets, but you have to have someone hand them out and retrieve
them. The system has a camera, so have it recognize open space on the table
and people in seats. Present people with menus projected on unused table
space. Plus you can offer customers games while they wait.

(Inevitably, someone will put in ads.)

------
chrisweekly
This looks amazing. Such a refreshingly different take on things, and such a
beautiful -- and realized! -- positive vision for how we might interact with
technology and each other. Brilliant.

------
jxf
How does one get a tour of Dynamicland? Is it open to visitors and/or is there
some way to get invited?

------
mrfusion
I’m not understanding how this works. What actions let you create a new table
in Postgres or drop an index? Are there ways to install new software like pip?

~~~
jakobegger
As far as I understand Dynamicland is not a general purpose OS that tries to
do everything. If you want to manage PostgreSQL, the shell is a pretty good
way to do that.

Dynamicland looks like a real world IDE, where a lot of the interface consists
of physical objects.

It's more like a Mathematica notebook than a bash shell.

------
omg_ketchup
> At Dynamicland computing is social like cooking is social. It’s also
> physical like cooking is physical. You’re not seated in front of a single-
> person screen, but walking around an open space, using a range of tools.

Ya lost me. I hate cooking specifically because of the physicality, of the
different tools, etc. If I liked cooking and all that shit, I'd be a chef.

~~~
setr
>If I liked cooking and all that shit, I'd be a chef.

It’d a pretty dull existence if the only things you liked to do could be
determined solely by your current job

------
platz
This works great when a small, gifted and creative community has tight
controls on the process.

But how will it work when non-creative people take the technology and make it
bland — and infuse it with ads, because that is the only viable business model
that tech seems to be able to come up with.

~~~
skadamat
This is always a risk with inventing something new. Their FAQ hints at how
they plan to mitigate some of the negative effects -
[https://dynamicland.org/faq/](https://dynamicland.org/faq/)

They want to mirror the Carnegie library model as much as possible. They're
also non-profit and not interested in building a product that can be purchased
(instead they think of this technology as infrastructure available to almost
everyone, like the internet or running water).

------
JFIAdmin
Thanks for an excellent article Steve, I thought it captured the spirit of the
place quite well.

------
platz
Does dynamicland have any kind of permissions / access system, also with
regards to pieces of the room, or the whole room, or is root access to the
system also controlled physically, like a conference room projector?

~~~
tokyodude
no, on purpose. I single person can crash the entire system (it reboots
quickly). A single person can spam the entire facility. This is, at least the
moment, intentional.

------
moocowtruck
i don't see the big difference other than just virtual interacting, other than
lots of clutter; and as miki123211 said..accessibility seems like it would be
quite an issue which is very important to me

------
SolarNet
Still not open source. Or "beyond" open source.

------
pleasecalllater
Really? Red thin text on white background? I'm sorry, I will not read it. Is
this the purpose of this site? What's the sense in writing something normal
people cannot read?

And yet it gets to the 1st page on HN, no one complains, and my comment will
get huuuge number of negative points, I know, as usually when someone posts a
comment about this kind of bad design of a page/author people worship.

~~~
jakobegger
I liked the red text. It's a very well designed layout, and the color choice -
while arguably questionable - gives it personality. Not every site needs to
look the same.

The fact that it has a lot of upvotes shows that aparently many people don't
have issues with the presentation.

Anyway, my browser has a "reader" mode that lets me make any website readable
with a single click, so I've stopped complaining about hard-to-read aticles.
Better to focus on the substance of the article...

------
AtlasBarfed
... so .... virtual legos?

------
miki123211
It's nice and all, but this is a nightmare for accessibility. Not everyone can
read paper or even move around. With this design, coding around those
limitations is not easy. In the current model, everything could be done 100%
accessibly. Why it isn't is a completely different problem. When everything is
inherently physical, though, accessibility is not just about the code, it
involves much more parts, such as automated devices to move things around.
Considering how expensive devices made for accessibility are (a braille
display is usually well over $1000), that would be a huge setback. I think the
beautiful thing about computers and technology is that you're not tied to any
physical medium and that information can flow freely between devices that can
represent it in different ways. Now, there can be ten programmers working on a
codebase, where one person uses a normal Windows box with a lot of GUI
editors, another one uses Linux in text mode with vim, a third one has a Mac
Mini with a screen reader and no monitor attached (my also blind friend
programs like that), and the fourth uses switches, eye movement sensors or
voice-recognition technology because they're physically disabled (see
[https://youtu.be/YRyYIIFKsdU?t=501](https://youtu.be/YRyYIIFKsdU?t=501)). In
other words, when everything is purely digital, you can consume and manipulate
information in any form you like and in any form the computer can work with.
It can be on a smartphone screen and with your finger, on a TV with a remote,
through a voice-controlled speaker or a laptop with a keyboard, the choice is
yours. The information is purely digital and not tied to a particular medium.
However, in Dynamicland, the information is mostly physical and it's the
computer that needs to process it, not the other way around. That makes
consuming the information through a different medium than it was originally
presented with very difficult. It would be possible for a computer to describe
a Dynamicland environment for the blind, but it wouldn't be easy for a blind
person to write the code on Paper. In a normal computer environment, such a
person can just use a different tool (AKA a screen reader instead of a
display) and work on the level of their sighted peers. However, a dYnamicland
environment makes such things impossible.

I recognize the limited Value of Dynamicland as an exercise environment, maybe
like Scratch. Even in that form, special considerations would need to be put
so that disabled people have an alternative way of doing the same exercises.

Dynamicland makes a lot of other things, not related to accessibility, harder
too. For example, how do you deal with larger codebases or distributed teams?
How do you quickly collaborate on one piece of paper while being in two
different places? Very simple to do for a Google doc. Almost impossible to do
here.

The idea is kind of interesting but it would be only worth it in a pre-
internet age. In 2018, people expect realtime collaboration with people in
different parts of the world and with Dynamicland, that's not going to happen.

~~~
mwcampbell
I wrote to Dynamicland's email address about this months ago, and even re-sent
the email, but never got an answer.

I suppose it's inevitable that if this vision of the future takes off, we'll
be second-class participants. But I guess it's too much to ask the majority to
not work in a way that would be great for them, just because it's a new
challenge for a few of us. We'll figure it out.

~~~
miki123211
I think even sighted people will realize it's not great at all when they
actually start doing it. It kind of would be, if it was introduced in the 80s,
where there was almost no internet, not for home users anyway, and where
laptops were mostly in the early adopters phase. This basically undoes the
progress we've made during the last two decades. The internet has allowed us
to collaborate remotely, and smartphones have enabled us to take the internet
with us, anywhere we go. Dynamicland makes those things almost impossible to
achieve.

