That’s all cool… except you can’t just run code all the time. It works for code that produces basically the same output every time it is run, that requires no input, that isn’t reactive or interactive. This is all true forProcessing.js programs which Khan Academy and the other live programming environments I’ve seen use (and Khan Academy even disables random numbers to ensure consistency). Processing.js is focused on drawing pictures, and drawing via code is okay, but… it doesn’t excite me. What excites me about code is its emergent properties, how the execution of the program evolves. When you write interesting code you can enable things you didn’t realize, things that you won’t realize until you explore that same code. What happens when you interact with it in a new order? What happens when you give it new input? When a program always produces the same output it makes me feel like the program could be substituted by its output. Who needs to program a drawing when you can just use a drawing program?
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