Thread by @conways_law

To @jessitron and @robsmallshire.

Since you’ve brought this up let me tell you what I’ve learned from a couple decades of pursuing the idea of composition of simple functions. I was using unidirectional-flow wiring, not text, but that’s irrelevant to the story here.

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What I learned: Yes it’s a great idea and it’s doable, but you can’t do realistic apps in one level. It takes two. I started with a simple language and then started extending it to do real things. After a while it became a programming language.

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I delivered this story March 2 in SFO and made it back just before the lockdown. The thesis is at

https://twitter.com/conways_law/status/1238539200686948353

You divide apps between two communities with an interface between them, creating a two-sided market with anybody on one side & developers on the other

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The story I told begins at the above URL. I’ll give you the tech bottom lines here. First, it’s important that the underlying application model is a static *connection* model, stated in the box here:

https://twitter.com/conways_law/status/1238548554127413250

.

(Think mainframe/IBM 3270 apps.)

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The wiring in the left rounded rectangle expresses the connections in the model statement.

At melconway.com/Working/WP_20.… is a paper describing the idea in detail.

(Underlying everything is a dozen "humane" design principles at
melconway.com/Home/pdf/human….)

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There is a detailed walk-through of a simple use-case on pages 5-10 of WP_20. Using the links on page 18 you can see videos of the interactive wiring process.

I think somebody could build a new development platform from this, with the usual network-effect benefits.

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