programming principles

A roughly ten-minute demo of Microsoft's Intentional Programming research system, showing its editor and an unusual way of working with code. It is the first of two clips cut from a longer video.

Part 2 of an old Microsoft Research demo of Intentional Programming, showing the compiler side of a system that stores programs as abstract structure rather than text. The uploader says the companion editor clip is clearer.

The first lecture of Stanford's CS107 Programming Paradigms, taught by Jerry Cain, giving an overview of the course. The course goes from C and assembly through C++, concurrency, Scheme and Python.

Economist-comedian Yoram Bauman delivers a humorous translation of Mankiw's ten principles of economics for the uninitiated. It was presented at the AAAS humor session in 2007.

An eight-minute excerpt of a 1983 video featuring Seymour Papert, creator of Logo, on children learning programming and abstract ideas through embodied play. It shows kids acting out the Logo turtle.

A 2007 video of someone trying to write Perl code using Windows Vista's speech recognition, with hilariously bad results.

A short Dyalog demonstration building Conway's Game of Life in a single line of APL, step by step. It shows how array operations replace loops.

An excerpt from Hal Abelson's opening SICP lecture introducing computer science and contrasting declarative and imperative knowledge. He argues that computer science is not really a science and is more like magic or engineering of ideas.

A 1937 GM-produced film explaining how the automobile differential lets wheels turn at different speeds around a corner. It uses clear animations and cutaway demonstrations to build the idea from first principles.

A 1930s Chevrolet training film explaining the principles and development of the differential gear. It builds the idea step by step from first principles to the finished mechanism.

Ward Cunningham explains the history and intent of the debt metaphor, which he coined while refactoring the WyCash product. He says debt means code reflecting an incomplete understanding of the problem, not sloppy programming.

Karl Sims's 1994 demonstration of evolved virtual creatures: block-bodied creatures whose bodies and controllers are evolved through selection, mutation and recombination to swim, walk and compete.

Jensen Harris of the Office 2007 design team tells the behind-the-scenes story of the Ribbon at MIX08. He covers early prototypes, mistakes, and the UX principles used to design and validate it.