Re: Re: Re: Re: regarding the On Colaboration reblog onthe Rhiz front page

I like that term "exploratory programming". That sounds like the perfect name for an art-school introductory programming course.

Rob Myers wrote:

> Oh definitely. One problem for art computing is that people tend to
> use
> Java or
> C++. These are statically typed, compiled languages that you do need
> to design
> programs for using all that boring software design methodology before
> you start
> coding otherwise you will quickly get lost. They are also brittle when
> you
> change things, and unforgiving when they fail. Even Processing
> inherits
> some of
> these problems, being based on Java.
>
> A more hackerish way of coding is called "exploratory programming".
> This is
> where you start writing code, see where it goes, then extend the
> program to
> follow your ideas. It's much easier to do this style of programming in
> a
> dynamically typed, interpreted or interactive language like the
> scripting
> languages or the Lisp family. It's like using oil paint rather than
> tempera.
> ;-)
>
> If you've ever seen Livecoding those guys tend to use Perl or another
> scripting
> language in an interactive interpreter. That gets you close to the
> code in
> realtime.
>
> So for a more fliud way of pursuing ideas in code I do recommend
> dynamic
> languages and exploratory programming.
>
> - Rob.
>