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1/ We independent researchers like to see ourseveles as fearless foragers. But if we're not careful, we often end up retracing well worn paths
2/ In the #futureofcoding community, we get into various paradigms/topics: blocks, node-and-wires, projectional editors, DSLs, VPLs, OOP, FP, FRP, LISPs, type systems, smalltalks, debuggers, viualizers, direct manipulation, WYSIWYG, program synthesis, formal methods, ...
3/ But breaking into the literature from outside academic for a new field/topic is overwhelming! So we strap on the Silicon Valley mindset and start hacking 👨💻
...only to later find out that we could've avoided the trouble if we knew our history
...only to later find out that we could've avoided the trouble if we knew our history
4/ How do we help independent researchers sittuate themselves?
5/ Finding a advisor is the gold standard (like I did with @jonathoda), but that's not an option for everyone
6/ New researchers need to know the hard, unsolved problems. As well as the solutions to the solved problems for easy copying. They need the classic papers & notable people. They need to know which conferences and workshops to submit to. They need to know who to follow on Twitter
7/ My proposal: nominate a person to be the "authority" for a topic, to keep a roughly up-to-date list of notable papers, videos, links, communities, and, importantly, contextualizing why each is important
8/ It'd kind of be like a "living survey paper"
9/ And we should convince someone to fund these people for their efforts!
