Top all-time · #15
Bret Victor
Personal blog · worrydream.comprogrammingdesign
Bret Victor's personal blog at worrydream.com covers programming and design. Since 2007, 948 different Hacker News readers have linked it 1,484 times, most often “What can a technologist do about climate change?”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-05-15, and you can follow it by feed.
Rarely recommended · 2 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Bret Victor's essays on interaction design, interface critique and programming learnability, usually to recommend them or as a pointer to related ideas. Several commenters call his work a goldmine of interface thinking.
- Recommended for · 2 comments
- One commenter calls his interface and interactive-visualization thinking a hidden goldmine; another says his Magic Ink article is a contrarian gem. Both are pra
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
An offshore drilling platform in the sea of knowledge.
Most-linked posts?
- What can a technologist do about climate change?68 people · 80 mentions · first linked 2015-11-24
- Bret Victor: Learnable Programming61 people · 68 mentions · first linked 2012-09-26
- Bret Victor, beast of burden51 people · 55 mentions · first linked 2011-02-05
- Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction46 people · 55 mentions · first linked 2011-10-11
- A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design42 people · 62 mentions · first linked 2011-11-08
- The Early History Of Smalltalk (1993)42 people · 55 mentions · first linked 2012-11-07
- Magic Ink35 people · 49 mentions · first linked 2007-04-02
- Learnable Programming (2012)35 people · 42 mentions · first linked 2012-12-03
- The Future of Programming29 people · 33 mentions · first linked 2013-07-30
- Tangle is a JavaScript library for creating reactive documents.29 people · 32 mentions · first linked 2011-06-14
What Hacker News says?
The interactivity also reminded me of this post from Bret Victor: http://worrydream.com/LadderOfAbstraction/
Comment linking /LadderOfAbstraction/
on “Gears”Submitted Bret Victor: Learnable Programming as a story · 1080 points
HN discussionSeymour Papert's childhood (cf. "Mindstorms" [1] introduction) obsession with gears sprung to mind. [1] http://worrydream.com/refs/Papert%20-%20Mindstorms%201st%20e...
Comment linking /refs/Papert%20-%20Mindstorms%201st%20ed.pdf
on “Gears”Submitted A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design as a story · 830 points
HN discussionYou're misunderstanding the rant. There are some interfaces which are absolutely superior when provided as picture under multi-touch glass. Superior to what? I think you mean superior to mouse + keyboard, and superior to a physical map. The author agrees with you, as he clarified in a followup [1] to the rant: > [Do I think the iPad is bad?] No! iPad good! For now! Do you remember the first time you used a map on a…
Comment linking /ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/responses.html
on “Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles”Submitted Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction as a story · 733 points
HN discussionYeah, and that sucks, but we live with it because that's the only way for it to fit in our pocket. Why would we port one of the compromises of the smartphone interface over to our car interface? And yes, I know, dynamic is a trump card. It still sucks. Have you ever read Bret Victor's rant on it? http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesi...
Comment linking /ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/
on “Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles”Submitted The Future of Programming as a story · 614 points
HN discussionBret Victor's "A Brief Rant On The Future Of Interaction Design" is just as relevant now as it was back in 2011: > There's a reason that our fingertips have some of the densest areas of nerve endings on the body. This is how we experience the world close-up. This is how our tools talk to us. The sense of touch is essential to everything that humans have called "work" for millions of years. > Now, take out your favor…
Comment linking /ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/
on “Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles”Submitted Tangle is a JavaScript library for creating reactive documents. as a story · 440 points
HN discussionThank goodness! At least Mazda is opting out of the Pictures Under Glass insanity: http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesi...
Comment linking /ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/
on “Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles”Submitted Tangle: a JavaScript library for reactive documents as a story · 435 points
HN discussionhttp://worrydream.com/AlligatorEggs/
Comment linking /AlligatorEggs/
on “Conversations with a six-year-old on functional programming”Submitted Media for Thinking the Unthinkable as a story · 409 points
HN discussionBret Vector's classic paper "Magic Ink: Information Software and the Graphical Interface" boldly states: "Interactivity considered harmful"! When I first read that, I was flabbergasted and offended, because I love interactivity. But he's right. "Interaction should be used judiciously and sparingly, only when the environment and history provide insufficient context to construct an acceptable graphic." -Bret Victor, M…
Comment linking /MagicInk/
on “Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls”Submitted What can a technologist do about climate change? as a story · 402 points
HN discussionAlso, here's an essay I really like written more from a tech/software engineer perspective about how to align your career towards building (with an emphasis on building our way out of the climate crisis): http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange I've pivoted my career to working on the Julia programming language, because of its focus on science and engineering (_building things!_) rather than what I used to be doing in t…
Comment linking /ClimateChange
on “It’s Time to Build”Submitted A few words on Doug Engelbart as a story · 382 points
HN discussionKay is bang on. 1. http://worrydream.com/TheWebOfAlexandria/ 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_rot 3. Comment elsewhere in this thread about how we have been forced into turning a document system into a VM.
Comment linking /TheWebOfAlexandria/
on “Tim Berners-Lee wins Turing Award”Submitted Some excerpts from recent Alan Kay emails as a story · 337 points
HN discussionThank you for sharing those details, I didn't know that. I learned and grew so much by reading Lynn's autobiography, but there's so much in there and it's so deep and personal, that it's hard to get my head around how amazing and difficult a life she had, and details like that help. I was researching some of the names that Alan Kay mentioned in his classic paper about the history of Smalltalk and his 1993 interview…
Comment linking /EarlyHistoryOfSmalltalk/
on “Lynn Conway has died”Submitted A brief rant on the future of interaction design (2011) as a story · 335 points
HN discussion> from TFA: "Designers want a "clean" interior with minimal switchgear" Speaking as someone with an Interaction Design (IxD) degree: no we fucking don't. Tactile buttons being superior has been known for ages. For example, Bret Victor wrote "A Brief Rant On The Future Of Interaction Design" in 2011, so over a decade ago[0]. Not that anyone with the power to change things listened, because these decisions aren't made…
Comment linking /ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/
on “Physical buttons outperform touchscreens in new cars, test finds”Submitted Working at Apple (2011) as a story · 297 points
HN discussionI found Bret Victor's "What can a technologist do about climate change" ( http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/ ) a refreshingly action-oriented exploration of your question ("but what?"). Its interactivity and richness of presentation are icing on the cake. Incidentally, one can imagine a parallel message of informed empowerment to address the dark sides of OP's UI "mind hijacks."
Comment linking /ClimateChange/
on “How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds”Submitted A brief rant on the future of interaction design (2011) as a story · 238 points
HN discussionHere are some links: http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy http://t.co/cJgpnX5B http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4BFC3F13B846707B http://books.google.com/books/about/Mindstorms.html?id=HhIEA... http://worrydream.com/ http://vpri.org/ Part 4 primarily of: http://www.amazon.com/The-Design-Essays-Computer-Scientist/d...
Comment linking /
on “Light Table - a new IDE concept”Submitted Meanwhile, at code.org as a story · 227 points
HN discussionYou would make Bret Victor proud! For a slight chance you have not seen this; check it out for additional inspiration http://vimeo.com/36579366 http://worrydream.com/
Comment linking /
on “Light Table - a new IDE concept”- pw · 2011-05-10
Submitted Kill Math as a story · 227 points
HN discussion
