This program is tentative and subject to change.

Wed 23 Oct 2024 14:30 - 15:10 at Pacific - Onward! Essays

This essay, based on a series of discussions between the authors, is a loosely edited collage in which we work to flesh out our shared interests in non-traditional machines and coding mechanisms. We primarily focused on the idea that all human language can usefully be viewed in programming language terms — as “natural code”. Programming languages and natural languages differ in many ways, such as having relatively formal definitions versus not, emphasizing strong syntax versus large dictionaries, and demanding rigid implementations versus building on the vagaries of living systems. Still, we saw deep unities as well, much more than mere metaphor, and we glimpsed the possibility of applying humanity’s decades of programming language design and software engineering experience to the task of debugging and refactoring the natural codebase that we all share. These fragmentary and overlapping dialogues represent both a description and an example of natural code, and we offer them here, with a simple “natural API” illustration, in hopes of programming people to join in natural code development.

This program is tentative and subject to change.

Wed 23 Oct

Displayed time zone: Pacific Time (US & Canada) change

13:40 - 15:20
Onward! EssaysOnward! Essays at Pacific
13:40
40m
Talk
A Case for Feminism in Programming Language Design
Onward! Essays
Felienne Hermans Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Ari Schlesinger University of Georgia
14:30
40m
Talk
Dialogues on Natural Code
Onward! Essays
Lu Wilson Tentpole, David H. Ackley Living Computation Foundation