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Bret Victor - Inventing on Principle

Rui Oliveira · talk · Watch on YouTube

GUI, HCI & interface historyTesting, debugging & developer toolsUX & UI design

What it is

Bret Victor's talk at CUSEC 2012 in which he argues that creators need immediate feedback and should organize their work around a guiding principle. He demonstrates live-coding and animation tools that show results as you type, and describes his own principle that creators must see what they are making.

Why Hacker News recommends it

It is HN's go-to recommendation for the case that programming environments should give instant feedback, and it appears in nearly every thread on live coding, visual programming or developer tools.

  • 12 people recommended it
  • 11 different months
  • 5 strong recommendations
  • first 2013, last 2025

What HN commenters said

  1. “My mind was blown when I saw this video 2 years ago”

    Mind-blowing talk on live programming feedback.

    bigsassy, 2014-06 · Strong recommendation · in “Introducing Swift”

  2. “it doesn't get much better than this”

    Top inspirational talk about software development.

    productionQA, 2014-07 · Strong recommendation · in “Ask HN: Favorite talks [video] on software development?”

  3. “Bret Victor's Inventing on Principle talk[1] is one of the best I've seen.”

    Inspires rethinking development tools and approaches.

    rpeden, 2018-02 · Strong recommendation · in “Ask HN: What's your favorite tech talk?”

  4. “Bret Victor's Inventing on Principle is even better”

    Better than most product pitches for dev tools.

    ignoramous, 2022-06 · Strong recommendation · in “Ask HN: Best dev tool pitches of all time?”

  5. “an absolute must watch, if anyone hasn't yet”

    Real-time feedback on parameters reveals hidden behavior.

    pedrovhb, 2024-01 · Strong recommendation · in “What I've learned about flow fields so far”

  6. “Bret does have some pretty innovate ideas on Programming and Design (and more).”

    Innovative ideas on programming and design.

    DanielRibeiro, 2015-11 · Recommendation · in “The Utopian UI Architect”

  7. “while Victor is explicitly saying make it count by way of targeting with intention what’s important to you.”

    Victor urges targeting what is important with intention.

    bch, 2019-04 · Recommendation · in “Panic’s Next Editor”

  8. “This reminds me of the excellent talk by bret victor”

    gervwyk, 2020-05 · Recommendation · in “Ask HN: Are React-like UI frameworks a fad or a genuine step forward?”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: bret victor, live coding, developer tools, interaction design, visual programming

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