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22 Oct, 4 tweets, 2 min read
Showing spreadsheet dependencies by subtle blending back and forth, rather than a separate "dependencies mode"

from 1998 work at PARC: www-ui.is.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~takeo/researc…
This feels loosely related to Observable’s dependency view... giving ambient glimpses of the dataflow structure underneath

I no longer agree with my prior take on this

It’s true the most naive approach doesn’t scale well, but the design space is vast

Besides scalability, the biggest naive nodes and wires mistake is to represent operations with nodes.

Gotta put data in the nodes for visibility!!! And operations can be wires. Elegantly explained here by @qualmist:

joshuahhh.com/projects/pane/

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More from @geoffreylitt

Geoffrey Litt Profile picture
22 Oct
Engelbart, on the danger of building "natural" systems Image
He references this point in this 1986 talk looking back at The Demo and his work on NLS / augmentation. Strongly recommend

I think I would be very sad if I time traveled forward to 2070 and found their version of computing immediately familiar, "natural" and "easy to use"
Read 6 tweets
Geoffrey Litt Profile picture
22 Oct
Hypothesis: the next big end user programming environment won’t be a “programming environment”.

It will be “just an app” where you put your data. But then sneakily becomes super powerful
I’d argue spreadsheets basically work like this.

This also isn’t a very hot take, I think Airtable, Notion and Coda all see this as their path to varying degrees
Read 4 tweets
Geoffrey Litt Profile picture
20 Oct
I wrote a data vis article with @s3ththompson for the @ParametricPress!

It's about the role of fossil fuel companies in climate change, and how we can pressure them to be part of the solution.

Make sure to scroll all the way to the bottom... 🤓

parametric.press/issue-02/corpo…
100% of the credit for this interactive 3D scene goes to @s3ththompson. It's amazing how adding 3D into the mix totally explodes the space of design possibilities...
Was fun learning this stack for the emissions visualization:

- @idyll_lang as base article framework, with scrollytelling module powered by the scrollama library
- react + react-spring for DOM rendering and animations
- d3 for math and data processing
Read 8 tweets
Geoffrey Litt Profile picture
6 Oct
💫 Excited to share what I worked on this summer with @inkandswitch! We built Cambria, a tool that enables more flexible data compatibility in software.

Here's why I'm personally invested in this research... »
I believe deeply in being able to customize our software tools. But something has been bugging me: if we edit our tools, how does that square with collaboration?

Like, how far can I tweak my writing environment while keeping it working nicely with yours? »
The usual answer is: we all agree to use the same software, or the same file format. But this really limits how far we can tweak.

What if we could fudge around the edges more? Changing the data format while keeping things mostly working together... »
Read 5 tweets
Geoffrey Litt Profile picture
27 Aug
The rush of stumbling across prior art that resonates precisely with what you're trying to do
yes!!!
The Apple problem

Read 5 tweets
Geoffrey Litt Profile picture
29 Jun
A theory about why tools like Airtable and Notion are so compelling: they provide a much-needed synthesis between the design philosophies of UNIX and Apple.

Short thread:
UNIX is still the best working example of "tools not apps": small sharp tools that the user can flexibly compose to meet their needs.

Once you've written a few bash pipelines, it's hard to be satisfied with disconnected, siloed "apps"
The problem is, while the roots are solid, the terminal as UI is extremely hostile to users, esp beginners. No discoverability, cryptic flags, lots of cruft and chaos.

Read 11 tweets

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