
Dynamicland - Pulcinella
https://dynamicland.org/
======
mendeza
Super exciting Bret Victor publicly launched this project! On a related note,
A professor at MIT, Hiroshi Ishii, has done a lot of work in tangible user
interfaces around 2003-2005, you can see more work here:
[http://tangible.media.mit.edu/projects/](http://tangible.media.mit.edu/projects/)

Definately the visions/goals are differently motivated, but interesting to see
more examples of adding tangible control to computing.

~~~
skadamat
More overlap than you think!

In his talk - [https://vimeo.com/115154289](https://vimeo.com/115154289) \-
Bret has a footnote reference to Radical Atoms group (Hiroshi's group)

~~~
mendeza
Awesome! I forgot about that mention. You should see what that research group
is doing now. "Radical Atoms" where the material is dynamic and embodies
computation. Now they are applying it to food... super fascinating!

------
flixic
This looks very interesting, but the most confusing part for me is how code
appears on these printed pages. Do you have to type it in computer and print
to run, using physical space just to organise, not actually develop? All the
examples show these pieces of paper already being there, just moved and
interacted with.

I'm very curious if DynamicLand code can be created without touching keyboard,
and actually printing new sheets by just moving and interacting with other
sheets, making it actually self-hosting.

Also, their examples are very visual and quite complicated (car aerodynamics
flow). Doing this from scratch might be quite challenging, unless building
blocks are very smart.

\---

Sidenote: I'm surprised to learn that code printed on these sheets is Lua-
based. Lua does not have a lot of syntax, but does have some, and I would
think that any language that is meant to be created in physical space should
aim for the most minimal syntax, almost none if possible. Lisp comes to mind,
as I can image a physical representation of S-expressions much better than Lua
code.

~~~
TheRealPomax
I'm not sure I understand why one would expect that any language that is meant
to be created in physical space should aim for the most minimal syntax.

Regular folks who don't program in their daily life connect best with things
they can read: presenting them with lisp is a bit like presenting them with
mathmatical notation: even if those that are marginally familiar with them
will say it's simple, it's exactly too difficult to be accessible for people
who have _no_ familiarity with them at all. You actually want that verbosity
of added syntax, because it lets people recognize something in what is
inherently alien to them.

~~~
flixic
You don't want syntax because you don't want Magnetic Poetry kits, having to
arrange very special "structure words" in very special places, and hope that
"lines" make sense.

Don't think about (Lisp (notation)) -- think about the fact that the entire
syntax is "this is enclosing box" (can easily be done with paper by putting
smaller sheets on larger ones) and "this is the order of items within the box"
(very natural to re-arrange these blocks). Lisp doesn't have lines, in that
sense, and lines don't make a lot of sense in physical world.

Just to be clear, I'm not disagreeing about the fact that Lisp is a bit
complicated to be first programming language _when writing text_. But its
design is great for physical manipulation.

------
pavlov
Awesome, genuinely novel -- really interested to see where this goes:

 _A primary design principle at Dynamicland is that all running code must be
visible, physically printed on paper. Thus whenever a program is running, its
source code is right there for anybody to see and modify. Likewise the
operating system itself is implemented as pages of code, and members of the
community constantly modify and improve it._

 _That said, the pages of code physically in Dynamicland are not in a git
repository. The community organizes code spatially — laying it out on tables
and walls, storing it in folders, binders, and bookshelves._

[https://dynamicland.org/faq/](https://dynamicland.org/faq/)

~~~
sterlind
perhaps I'm missing something, but wouldn't large-scale adoption like they're
projecting be really hard on the environment?

Dynamicland introduces a 1:1, persistent mapping between virtual and tangible.
won't this kill a lot of trees?

~~~
michaelscott
Yeah I noticed this as well. It will work well as an integration into existing
spaces, or some built specifically for this reason (as mentioned on the
website).

The space and resource requirements definitely stifle it for ubiquitous
application but hey, it's an early tech and it'll certainly improve in time.

------
arghbleargh
Sounds intriguing, but after reading through the website for 5 minutes, I
still have no idea how this is supposed to work.

From the pictures, it looks like they've set up some kind of system to
translate certain physical movements into changes in the projected images. It
seems like a non-technical user can only make superficial changes within a
limited set of pre-defined behaviors. But from the description it sounds like
there's a lot more to it than that...

~~~
jf
Right now, each piece of paper in Dymanicland is a program. You put a piece of
paper down and it "runs" \- the metaphor breaks down at this point though.
With a little bit of code, anything in Dynamicland can become "alive" and
interactive.

For me, the impressive part of Dymanicland is how physical everything is. Want
to see how something works? Find the paper that the code is printed on. Need
help understanding some code? Bring somebody over to the wall, table, or couch
where the code is. You can annotate the paper, draw diagrams on it, cut it,
fold it, tear it, put it in a book to help others learn how it works. Want to
edit some code? Point an "editor" token at the paper program you want to
modify, then start changing the code.

Dynamicland isn't a room with a computer, it's a room that is a computer.

~~~
lfowles
I'm looking for more details as well, the idea fascinates me. Each program
looks to be a code printout, so I'm not quite grasping how changing code works
with just an "editor token".

~~~
mquander
The printed code is sort of just a documentation -- the system isn't, for
example, scanning it visually to decide what to execute. Rather, each card
encodes a unique ID, and the running code lives on the network at that ID, so
you can point your editor at the card, read the ID, and see and edit the code
at that ID. The printout is just the code that was at the ID at the time of
printing.

~~~
westoncb
Would be cool if they projected the code onto the card rather than printing
it—that way it doesn't get stale, and more re-use.

------
apatters
Are there some example applications created at Dynamicland that we can look
at? i.e. what has actually been done with this platform to date? (Not sure
applications and platform are the correct terms to use, but this concept is
totally new to me)

~~~
ngokevin
Check their Twitter
[https://twitter.com/Dynamicland1](https://twitter.com/Dynamicland1)

~~~
apatters
Fascinating stuff there!!

------
jf
Realtalk is the most exciting computer system that I've used in a long time.
The wonder and joy of using Realtalk is very much like the wonder and joy I
had at using Linux and Genera for the first time.

If you ever get a chance to visit Dynamicland, do not pass it up.

~~~
_mhr_
Could you elaborate on how Realtalk works? There's a lot of information on
Dynamicland, but not much on Realtalk. The gist is that it's like OOP, but
physical. But I'm curious as to the exact details of how the printer example
([https://dynamicland.org/faq/](https://dynamicland.org/faq/)) might work.

------
SolarNet
This is a cool project. But their opinion on the open source status of their
systems seems pretty entitled, arrogant even. There are a lot of questions
left unanswered, and the implications of their text is disingenuous at best.
Claiming their system is "beyond" open source. Yet I can't find any way of
experimenting with this system myself. They fail all the tests of truly free
open source software [0], let alone even the sniff test of being merely open
source (can I read it?).

This software is no more liberating than a "free" windows product given and
taught to kids in a hope to encourage vendor lockin. They use words like "lift
all people" or "agency not apps": nah, only those people who live nearby in
one of the most expensive places in the world. The system is confined to their
magic building, will they charge fees? are only those wealthy enough to travel
and live near one be able to experience it? can anyone set up these buildings
(around 2040 no less), or is there a franchise fee or agreement that is
required? _where is the code_ (scanners are a thing; what about the bootstrap
code running on the servers)?

They claim to be basing the model off of the internet. Decentralized agreed
upon protocols. How can I talk to their system if nothing is published? If
there is no code to read? How in the world is that an open decentralized
protocol? How can people iterate - provide feed back - when they don't even
have RFCs or _any published material at all_. They are promoting exactly the
walled garden behavior that is the antithesis of the open model of the
internet.

The whole thing is suspect. I realize they are a non-profit, great. But that
doesn't mean they support the ideals of a public commons like a free and open
source project. It doesn't mean donations to this project will truly be
helpful to everyone. Yet they are "beyond" open source. It reeks of arrogance
and entitlement to claim such things. It rubs me the wrong way. Especially
because it seems so cool.

[0] For those who forget: (0) to run the program, (1) to study and change the
program in source code form, (2) to redistribute exact copies, and (3) to
distribute modified versions.

~~~
vertex-four
> Yet I can't find any way of experimenting with this system myself.

Given that it's a physical space... you go to the physical space. You can pick
up the source code for the entire thing there - it's self-hosting, so you can
read it like any other object in Dynamicland. You can also copy it physically,
using a scanner.[0] Actually finding a suitable physical space and building a
community might be the the hardest part of replicating it.

It's also a very early project - the first Dynamicland space opens next year.
I'm sure we'll learn more about it, but the entire point of it is that it's
_not_ online - it's a physical space and a community meeting in real life, and
if you want to learn about it and maybe try to replicate it, you'll have to go
there.

[0]
[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DJc2esBVwAAnj4X?format=jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DJc2esBVwAAnj4X?format=jpg)

~~~
SolarNet
I'll just quote myself, since you seemed to ignore these counter points to
your post the first time around, and failed to answer them

> are only those wealthy enough to travel and live near one be able to
> experience it? [...] where is the code (scanners are a thing; what about the
> bootstrap code running on the servers)?

A project can't claim to be "beyond" open source by having _printed_ (unless
they are using a printing press, that code was digital at some point) pieces
of paper, especially while only being available to a couple of - by absolute
standards - wealthy people.

------
jongold
One of the coolest things I've ever played with. It's hard to describe how
antiquated engaging with computation through 5.5" or 15" rectangles is when
you've seen a whole building that is a computer

------
modernerd
I love the description of Dynamicland as “Hypercard in the World”[1].

[1] From the Laser Socks write-up — a great example of a game that came out of
Dynamicland: [http://glench.com/LaserSocks/](http://glench.com/LaserSocks/)

~~~
Glench
A small technical point: "Hypercard in the World" was one of the prototype
systems that came before Realtalk, which is the operating system and protocol
that runs Dynamicland.

------
nickbauman
Reminds me of Bret Victor's (ostensible maker of the iPad) post on interaction
design:

[http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesi...](http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/)

~~~
azeirah
Something I really dislike about the way he presents his work is that he is
intentionally really really vague about what his contribution was to those
various products, in his presentations he often shows a few slides "I worked
on this, this and this", where the iPad and watch get shown..

Like, what did you do? Design the home screen? Design the vision of the
machine itself? It's ambiguity taken to its highest extreme.

I really respect his work and publications though, no doubt that he made
important contributions to the products he shows on his slides.

~~~
bvfanboy3
See his details on his work at Apple here:
[http://worrydream.com/#!/Apple](http://worrydream.com/#!/Apple) Spoiler: he
can't talk about or show any details for some number of years. From his notes
there and his other research, it seems would have been a proponent for
skeuomorphic design at Apple, which lost out after 2011 in favor of flat
buttons and icons.

~~~
nickbauman
The skeuomorphic design "battle" is a myth. Look at the iphone settings icon
_today:_ there are no gears in your phone. Skeuomorphism lives on, we just
believe what The Submarine tells us.

------
Sophistifunk
This seems like an excellent toy, a great tool for education, and possibly a
good UI for future end-user systems that mostly live in the cloud. But in no
way something that could be used to _build_ those systems.

Almost everything that's good and powerful about software comes precisely
because it's non-physical. It's probably just a failure of imagination on my
part, but I can't see a path where re-introducing a bunch of physical
representations of virtual things makes things better for those trying to
create, maintain, or understand complex systems.

~~~
bvfanboy3
Since the programs are printed out and stored in filing cabinets, it'd be too
bad if something cool happening at one Dynamicland instance couldn't be easily
shared with another instance somewhere else. We know that computing would be
better if it was shared in a physical space with real-world social circles.
But not everybody has those: some people are disabled, or rural, or outcasts.
The same issue comes up with experiments with local meshes and P2P gossip for
new social networks.

Not as many people meet strangers in chat rooms or games these days, but it'd
be sad if the baby of connecting people anywhere was thrown out with the
bathwater of big social panopticons and glass screen prisons.

~~~
Stefstefstef
why don't you just share it and print it as need at other locations? the data
is all readable

------
mapster
I've failed to grasp it enough to explain it to a 5 yr old, but I think i love
the idea. I've always cringed at giving a 10 yr old a laptop which simply
becomes a conduit to a flash-based gaming in the browser. Activity based
programming should be the foundation for years before they touch a PC imho.
Its collaborative and fun - so it seems.

~~~
whywhywhywhy
At least a laptop can become more, the opportunity to delve deeper in the
system or learn how to code your own applications is always there if the
curiosity should ever arise.

Tablets on the other hand... literally just consumption devices, even creative
applications in them are locked up and siloed unable to inter-operate.

------
kindfellow92
Inspiring to see successful startup founders re-investing in the community:

    
    
        Andy Hertzfeld
        Mitch Kapor
        Patrick Collison
        Drew Houston
        Alex Payne
        Josh Elkes
        Carlin Wiegner
        Notion
        UCSF

------
canadian_voter
_One guest, after spending time at Dynamicland, held up his smartphone and
shouted, “This thing is a prison!”_

Holy crap. This is really, really cool. Actual magic.

 _But most importantly — programs are real. You touch them. You see them
everywhere — they can only run when visible. You can change anything and see
what happens. No black boxes._

I think I'm in love.

 _The computer of the future is not a product, but a place._

~~~
mcphage
> You can change anything and see what happens. No black boxes.

From the reverse: if something happens, how can I tell which piece of paper
somewhere in the room made that happen?

~~~
UncleEntity
> No black boxes.

Other than the ones hiding behind the projector in the ceiling you mean?

Kind of like the Wizard of Oz I suppose...

------
lawry
I'm instantly reminded of "The Mother of All Demos, presented by Douglas
Engelbart (1968)" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-
zdhzMY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY)

~~~
Pulcinella
Then you’ll like: [https://www.dougengelbart.org/firsts/1968-demo-
interactive.h...](https://www.dougengelbart.org/firsts/1968-demo-
interactive.html)

------
jancsika
There seems to be this difficulty in visual-based programming:

1\. If you want to maximize composibility, then you want the "units" (here,
the units would be the sheets of paper they're using) as general and uniform
as possible. Think lego blocks.

2\. If you want to maximize expressivity, then you want the "units" that
encapsulate (probably turing complete) code. Think flowcharts or diagrams
where each descriptor references a method, or a library, or eve an entire
subsystem.

The problem with #1 is that it's extremely difficult to build large, complex
projects that way.

A problem with #2 is that the "visual programming" aspect eventually gets
revealed to be merely a stepping stone to "real programming" of writing in
code.

This project looks to be an example of #2. Am I right? If that is so, does
that mean that creating complex projects would naturally lead to larger and
larger amounts of code on a single sheet?

~~~
skadamat
I'd personally really like for code to go away / not need to use it. It's an
important bootstrapping step, but really only the hardware of the 60s and 70s
more / less needed text, files, and source code.

With the physical environment of Dynamicland, "code" can be re-represented
using physical objects, and we may not even need it. That's a really exciting
idea!

~~~
Pulcinella
Yes! Coding != Programming

You can still have programming without text-based coding.

------
onikolas
Exciting project! Looks like it could lead to some real advances in human-
computer interaction. Large working area(desk, walls or the whole floor) and
automatically tracking and digitizing written notes and diagrams sounds very
cool. Maybe this and voice recognition will be the future of HCI if someone
manages to iron out the kinks and make it seamless.

But programming by putting A4 sheets side by side? I only see that being
useful as an education tool.

------
wwarner
I have nothing constructive to say except that i love it.

------
mej10
Very inspiring work! Would love to try it out.

~~~
jf
> We will be hosting open house events, classes, and studio hours at
> Dynamicland Oakland in 2018. Please join our mailing list [1] for
> announcements.

1: [https://tinyletter.com/Dynamicland](https://tinyletter.com/Dynamicland)

------
GuiA
There are a lot of comments here about how Dynamicland is a bit confusing to
understand, and the website is light on details.

The latter is true - it would be nice if there were academic style papers
describing the system, or reference source code, etc. - but I understand that
right now, their time is mostly dedicated to building+fundraising, and the
goal of this website is to have something rather than nothing online.

That being said, Dynamicland inherits a lot from many previous subfields in
computing.

If anyone wants to get deeper, and try to wrap their head around what
Dynamicland aims to be, here are what I think a few starting points:

\- Alan Kay's STEPS paper, the goal of which is to have a fully implemented OS
+ base libraries etc in a few thousands of lines of codes at most, by using
modern patterns and abstractions.

[http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2011004_steps11.pdf](http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2011004_steps11.pdf)

\- Bret Victor's "Seeing Spaces" is pretty much the precursor to Dynamic Land

[http://worrydream.com/SeeingSpaces/](http://worrydream.com/SeeingSpaces/)

\- Ishii & Ullmer's seminal paper "Tangible Bits: Towards Seamless Interfaces
between People, Bits and Atoms" (which precedes Dynamicland by 20 years, but I
think many core goals are shared)

[https://trackr-
media.tangiblemedia.org/publishedmedia/Papers...](https://trackr-
media.tangiblemedia.org/publishedmedia/Papers/331-Tangible%20Bits%20Towards%20Seamless/Published/PDF)

This paper kickstarted the whole "tangible interaction" subfield of Human
Computer Interaction. If you wish to dive even deeper, I recommend:

\- reading Ullmer's PhD thesis, of which the previous paper is essentially a
TL;DR

[http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~ullmer/thesis/full-
noblanks.pdf](http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~ullmer/thesis/full-noblanks.pdf)

\- checking out the proceedings of TEI, the ACM conference for Tangible &
Embodied Interaction (sadly you'll need an ACM digital library membership, but
if you are a computer scientist it is very much worth it and you should get
your job/school to pay for it if you can).

[https://dl.acm.org/event.cfm?id=RE271](https://dl.acm.org/event.cfm?id=RE271)

I have no ties to Dynamicland besides having visited it, but I have done my
graduate studies under one of the aforementioned authors and shared workplaces
with people from Bret's group, so I'm happy to talk more about the whole
"tangible interaction" aspect of it all.

~~~
vbuwivbiu
Also, I saw a demo of a similar technology in the 1990s at Sussex University,
in which a projector was used to create an interactive table where one could
write calculations with a pen and the results would appear projected (the
numbers having been recognized) and sketches could be augmented with shape-
recognition

------
zitterbewegung
Is this going to eventually be a product ? Or will there be a open source
solution created ? I really like the idea it is making things be on the
network. I bet you have really tight feedback loops reading on the design .
Does cut and paste work and also photocopying the code ?

~~~
jf
See the FAQ [1] which answers some, but not all, of your questions.

1: [https://dynamicland.org/faq/](https://dynamicland.org/faq/)

------
foota
At first I thought this was a room sized vr code organization library thing?
Like you could have a house with different rooms corresponding to different
packages

------
millettjon
I would be happy to donate if that would support open sourcing enough to
bootstrap this in other locations.

------
Waterluvian
Are all those large dots necessary for localization? They're really
distracting me.

~~~
jf
As I understand it, the dots are just a temporary measure while the team works
on implementing better methods of detecting objects.

------
MichaelMoser123
is there a video/life demonstration that shows off the basic interactions of
the system? So far I have not been able to understand what the system is
actually doing and how to use it (searched but did not find any demos on
youtube)

~~~
zeep
They probably have a camera and a projector on the ceiling. The camera detects
the dots on sheets of paper to be able to differentiate them. You will
probably need a computer to code what each sheet is going to do.

> Every scrap of paper has the capabilities of a full computer, while
> remaining a fully-functional scrap of paper.

this is probably a false statement...

------
archagon
I love the passion behind this project, but as with most physical or high-
level UIs, the idea strikes me as overly hubristic. In my experience, truly
marvelous works of interaction which expand the range of human thinking
require thousands (upon thousands) of lines of code. Clearly, that kind of
logic can't fit on scattered, small bits of paper. So is most of that
complexity defined by whatever code keeps this thing running? (Realtalk?) Does
this mean that the limits of your thinking in this environment are constrained
by the skill and intent of the coders developing the system libraries? I feel
this will end up becoming little more than a (really cool) room-sized toy, not
something that will change the way we think and interact.

Maybe boring ASCII code is simply the correct, inescapable tool for the job.
Maybe expanding the range of human thinking is impossible inside a system that
can't modify itself.

(But maybe I'm completely wrong!)

EDIT: One of the other comments mentioned that Realtalk is self-hosted on
pieces of paper. Hmm, that makes this a whole lot more interesting!

~~~
benfle
Aren't we lucky to have stumbled upon the "correct tool for the job" at our
first attempt.

~~~
archagon
I mean, you could argue that just as with writing, code is emergent from our
biology. Brains are naturally wired for language and symbolic thought. Once
computation was defined and made technically possible, perhaps the current
form of programming was simply inevitable. Not that other things aren't worth
trying, of course.

------
ivanche
I just love the word play of Smalltalk and Realtalk!

------
morsch
This seems like an interesting experience. But the wording on that page is as
much of a turn-off to me as the most the most cliche PR lorem ipsum. I feel
dumber having read it.

~~~
westoncb
Yep. And when you think that's bad, then you see some of the comments here
which appear to be aping it for free...

------
pazimzadeh
Can we get a picture of the ceiling?

------
wyck
> And everyone gets their hands on everything! You walk by, you see what
> someone is making, you play with it and trade ideas, you sit down and work
> on it together. This happens constantly.

Abandon your virtaul dreams hackers.. start to socalize and group think. And
use paper.

~~~
llamataboot
I'm not sure what kind of software you write, but every large piece of
software I've ever worked on has required collaboration, and collaboration
done well builds better software than any one coder could write by themselves.

~~~
comex
Not the OP, but I suffer from social anxiety, and the ability to socialize
outside of "real life" is a huge part of what attracted me to tech as a kid.
So to me, the idea of replacing data and virtual collaboration with a big
noisy room sounds… well, it sounds like a nightmare, a dystopia. It actually
makes my heart race a bit just thinking about it.

Of course, that doesn't mean the project is bad, just that it's profoundly
unsuited to me personally. But I'm probably not the only person like that on
this forum...

------
JKCalhoun
Cool, but I still prefer "Books Not Apps" for our children.

~~~
659087
So do many of the Silicon Valley executives who are pushing their privacy
invading products on schools. That's why they send their own children to
private "tech-free" schools to prevent them from being exposed to the same
products that pay their parents' bills.

~~~
bvfanboy3
It's reminiscent of how the daughter of one of the Lunchable inventors has
never eaten a single Lunchable.

