Pygmalion by David C. Smith

Pygmalion by David C. Smith

From Feeling of Computing by Ivan Reese, Jimmy Miller, and Lu Wilson

June 19, 2024 · 3h 10m

About this episode

This episode explores the Pygmalion project and its significance in the history of computing.

If you're anything like Ivan (oof, sorry), you've heard of Pygmalion but never caught more than the gist. Some sort of project from the early 70s, similar to Sketchpad or Smalltalk or something, yet another promising prototype from the early history of our field that failed to take the world by storm. Our stock-in-trade on this show. But you've probably heard of Programming by Demonstration. And you've certainly heard of icons — you know, those little pictures that have become indelibly part of computing as we know it. Pygmalion is the originator of these concepts… and more! The best introduction to Pygmalion is Mariano Guerra's No-code History: Pygmalion , which includes a clearly articulated summary of the big ideas, motivation, and design, with a video demonstration of the programming interface, key terminology, and links. The most introduction to Pygmalion — or Pig Million, The Millionth Pig, as it'll surely come to be known — is the subject of today's episode: the original paper by David Canfield Smith . Links $ We don't run ads on this show anymore. Sometimes Ivan makes a fake ad for a nonsense product like CarrotGrid or Hest, but those don't pay for the dirt & vapor we…

People in this episode

Hosts: Ivan, Jimmy Miller, Lu Wilson

Topics covered

  • Pygmalion
  • Programming by Demonstration
  • icons
  • computing history
  • early computing prototypes

Keywords

  • Pygmalion
  • David C. Smith
  • Programming by Demonstration
  • icons
  • computing history

Mentioned in this episode

Products: CarrotGrid, Hest

Books & works: Pygmalion, No-code History: Pygmalion

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