112 lines
6.4 KiB
HTML
112 lines
6.4 KiB
HTML
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<title>The zaubertrank applitude</title>
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</head>
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<h1>
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The zaubertrank applitude</h1>
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<div align=right><i>by Benjamin Fallenstein (<a href="mailto:b.fallenstein@gmx.de">b.fallenstein@gmx.de</a>)</i></div>
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<h2>
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Name issues</h2>
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The zaubertrank is pronounced TSAU-ber-trunk. The name means "magic potion"
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in German.
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<h2>
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Raison d'être</h2>
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"Programming for people." As
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<a href="http://www.erasmatazz.com/team_bios/chris.html">Chris
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Crawford</a> argues in his book
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<i><a href="http://www.erasmatazz.com/book.html">Understanding
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Interactivity</a></i> (2000), computers can expand our capabilities of
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thought as much as the written word, but in a different direction: while
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writing improved our sequential thinking (thinking in complex chains of
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ideas), computers can improve what Chris calls subjunctive thinking (thinking
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in many different possibilities). While the book allowed us to bring together
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many different ideas, the computer program allows us to explore the countless
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permutations resulting from a fixed set of rules. Instead of explaining
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the effects of every single possible action to a recipient, we can write
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a simulation they can experiment with.
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<p>Write a simulation? We need to be able to program for that, right?
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<p>The zaubertrank aims to be what the alphabet was (following Chris' line
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of thought) for the Greeks: the very tool that made writing easy to learn,
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that was the necessary prerequisite for a culture in which 'everybody'
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(every free grown-up male) was supposed to be able to read and write. Before
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the alphabet, there were thousands and thousands of signs which one needed
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to know by heart in order to produce a written text, or even understand
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one. Scribes where a very special class of people who had gotten a lot
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of training. The alphabet reduced these signs to a small number which,
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once learned, resembled the spoken language. Something people already knew.
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<p>So what does the zaubertrank do? In a way, the same. The complex world
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of signs and abbrevations programming languages consist of is translated
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into natural language (albeit not everyday language). Sentences like "Put
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the selected card on top of the stack the user clicked on" replace cryptic
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formulas like "selected.put(clickStack)," formulas which need time to understand
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and more time to actively write. The user doesn't enter these sentences;
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that would require a natural language parser far beyond our reach. Rather,
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they put it together from fragments functionally equivalent to the tokens
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of a programming language: "Put (which card?) on (which stack?)," "the
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selected card," and "the stack the user clicked on." This putting together
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with menus and mouses also ensures that there can't be any syntax errors:
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the computer won't allow the user to enter anything wrong.
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<p>Will this make computer programming trivial? No, unfortunately not.
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Creating a program will still be a complex task needing some thought. But
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hopefully, the barriers will be lowered, the learning curve will be better,
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and a program won't look as cryptic to non-programmers.
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<h2>
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My aim right now</h2>
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In 2001, I will be teaching a course on Interactive Storytelling, which
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uses the computer for interactive literary narrative. The interaction here
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is not between author and reader or even different authors; rather, it's
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between the reader and their computer. Stories take the form of interactive
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simulations. Ever read a <i>Choose Your Own Adventure</i> book? Well, if
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you imagine a more intelligent behind-the-scenes system than "flip to a
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different page," you have the idea of what we'll be dealing with at first.
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<p>As the people in this course won't be computer science students, I need
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some good way to teach them programming easily without wasting <i>too</i>
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much time on it.
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<p>So right now, I'm working on a first version of the zaubertrank, which
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shall be suitable for the needs of my course. The goals are: user interaction
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in "turns;" relative freedom in the internal workings of the literary simulation;
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easy to use for some simple structures, without the need of understanding
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the internals right off; an interface showing some text and some possible
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reactions (which you can click on). Of course, I need some good editing
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tools for the programs, too.
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<p>I want to realize this as a <a href="http://www.gzigzag.org">GZigZag</a>
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applitude or <i>zone of functionality.</i> ZigZag(tm) is a new "world"
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for computing, designed by
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<a href="http://www.sfc.keio.ac.jp/~ted/">Ted Nelson</a>,
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the inventor of computer-based hypertext. It aims to be a replacement for
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the file system, for the common user interfaces, for confining structures
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like lists, tables, and hierarchies, and for many other things most people
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take for granted in their everyday computer use. GZigZag is a free implementation
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of the system, lead by Tuomas Lukka at the University of Jyväskylä,
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Finland. An applitude is to ZigZag what an application is to the common
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computer world, with the difference that applitudes are combinable -- that
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is, they live in the same bigger structure and can share parts of their
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substructures. One way to look at applitudes is to say they're a way to
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interpret a part of the structure. Applitudes can contain custom views,
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that is views of the structure which look (somewhat) like the text editors
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or other programs we know so well. At the same time, the underlying structure
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can be viewed in generic views, which show the "bare metal" in useful ways,
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so that it's easy to see how things are stored.
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<p>Why, you ask, would anyone choose a completely different computer world
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they have trouble explaining as the basis for a new system of computer
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programming which shall function as the core of a new form of literature
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they have even more trouble explaining? Well, because the trouble with
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today's programming languages is not only in their cryptic syntax, but
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also in the non-visibility of their inner workings. A whole mental model
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needs to be build of variables, objects and so on, which can never be shown
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on the screen (or only with sophisticated tools written for the classroom).
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ZigZag makes this simple. If the underlying design is right, it will be
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easy to show what's going on when a program is executed. Besides, once
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the ZigZag model is learned, modeling otherwise complex structures in programs
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will be easy, because the ZigZag model makes them easy: that's why Tuomas,
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the technical leader of the GZigZag project, calls it a "hyperstructure
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kit," a toolkit for creating structures beyond lists, tables, and hierarchies.
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<h2>
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Components I need</h2>
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</body>
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</html>
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