I’ve just taken a new position at Dartmouth College as the inaugural Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor in Digital Humanities, where I will be centralizing the development of the digital side of things on campus as they relate to the arts and humanities. The post offers flexibility and time for both studio and academic research. My teaching will involve working across departmental lines; while my academic home will be in Film and Media Studies, I am able to teach courses across campus related to gaming, art, technology studies, innovation, design, and the like, in both theoretical and practical domains. Awesome! Tiltfactor, my laboratory, is moving with me, of course. I’m pleased to be working with my new amazing colleagues and am planning to launch initiatives with folks such as the code-theorist Aden Evens, the cyberfeminist theorist Brenda Silver, media theorists Mark Williams, Mary Desjardins, and Jeffrey Ruoff; Fabio Pellacini and Lorie Loeb of computer graphics and mocap fame; and so many, many others, it would take up much screen! I will continue to have a home base in NYC. Values at Play is continuing, and the NYC games community has just launched Digra Chapter here, as well as many other fantastic initiatives…

I have been facinated by the idea of combining web authorizing andprogramming even before I realize it is called Active Essay. ActuallyI made a numbers of projects along with the idea. Here is a shortstory of my side.Scamper Workspace

Scamper Workspace is a extention for Scamper, a web browser written inSqueak. It runs a Smalltalk code on any web page with simpleoperation.

I often write a tiny source code in Squeak on my blog. And it isnatural that you want to run the code without any effort. Usually, youmight have to copy and paste from web browser to Squeak. However,although Squeak has already a web browser named "Scamper", why do weneed such clumsy way? What's wrong if a web page is just a text assame as other Squeak's text object, and if you can use full featureswhich Squeak IDE has on it. Scamper has very limited as a webbrowser, but it is just O.K. to examine a code on blog. Only missingthing is a direct way to execute code on web page.

"No Application" is Squeak's original motto. Squeak consists with anumber of objects that they have each different tiny functions, andthose are connected naturally. In that sense, there are no need of"Application" because application is just an artificial boundary. Soit seems to me natural to add Workspace menu into Scamper.

Because all necessary code is already available in Squeak image. Theimplementation was very easy. However the result was surprisinglyattractive and profound. Thoru Yamamoto made a lot of contents forScamper Workspace and each of them are so exciting.

Typical page written for Scamper Workspace consists with a short storyand a couple of codes. A reader would executes the codes while readinga story. This format is very effective when the story is to explainhow to make a graphical program in Squeak. Especially the fearure isemphasized when a page consists only text and source code. Even itlookes if it were 1995's website, it make large variety of effects ifyou run the code. I would say that it could be another possibleevolution path for the Web.StackWiki

StackWiki is a multimedia authorizing tool written in Squeak. Documentis saved as original binary format with Swiki Server.

I made StackWiki inspired by Zest and Marmalade. Zest is WYSIWYGauthoring tool like Wiki uses local disk, which allows you to makelink to other page, and dynamic content in Smalltalk language. Aboveall, StackWiki emphasis more features in HyperCard and Wiki.

A StackWiki project consists with one or more pages. In WWW, nomallyrelationship between pages is maintained only hyper link, but there isno structure like hierarchy or order. Some websites attempt to showsuch structure with navigation link.

Structure among pages helps user to know a point within the contextthough, it often makes UI complicated. Addition to historicalnavigation, forward and backword navigation is needed if pages have anorder. Above all, if there is hierarchy, three dimensional navigationwould be necessary, In StackWiki, only foward and backword structureis used.

With background, you can put together similar structures in multipleplace in one. StackWiki only allows one background, although HyperCardcould handle more. Background is implemented as a special "background"page. If you add something onto background page, the element are shownsame place behind other elements in all pages.

Here is another interesting trade off. How complicated background isneeded? Background can be seen as a special version of macro. Macrois a generic term to represent common structure among document. Macrois very useful to reduce redundancy and to improve maintenancefactor. However, it is easy to make too complicated macro whichincludes macro of macro. In end user's point of view, background canbe better than full macro.

Each StackWiki's page is stored as a binary format in Swikiserer. Although, Swiki is itself web application, it is used just asfile upload feature. StackWiki doesn't use any web standard exceptHTTP transport to save data. It doesn't so good attitude in terms ofdata transparency. But it makes the development so quick that it tookonly three days to implement it.

Tinlizzie Wiki is a wiki written in Tweak. It uses OpenDocument Format(ODF) as data format, and WebDAV as server.

Although data format in StackWiki was Squeak specific binary, InTinlizzie Wiki existing common format is used. A part of reason why Ichoose ODF was that it was a research project to find a possibility toexchange eToys content among different platform. So it was necessaryto find platform independent and transparent format. ODF, especiallyits presentation format, was quite close to my demonds which are a)text based b) enable to embed graphics c) enable to use originalelement d) internal and external link supported.

A ODF file is just a zip archive which includes XML text andmultimedia binary files. And it is easy to extract image file in aproject by an another tool. Both embeded object and external resourcecan be represented by common URL notation. And if necessary, new tagfor Tweak specific object can be used. For example, a project whichincludes fully dynamic behavior written as Tweak objects can be viewedon ordinary OpenOffice Org application, although dynamic feature wouldin it be disabled.

To export Tweak object to ODF as natural as possible, special care wasneeded to save. It is not the best way to define a new tag for Tweakspecific object even though it is possible. It was preferable to mapfrom Tweak to ODF properly. For example, if a Book object in Tweak isstored as a presentation within frame in ODF, the project lookssomewhat more normal even on other application.

There is a issue how much detail information is needed to save anobject. For example, if a text is saved during its editing, whether ifposition of the cursor should be saved or not?? There are two strategyin terms of implementation. One is to save everything except specifiedstatus (deep copy), another one is to save only specifiedstatus. Tinliziie Wiki adopted the latter one although Squeak andTweak native serialize mechanism were the former.

Saving only specific status has two disadvantages. a) A user mightexpect to save everything including minor information becausecombining arbitrary objects in even any peculiar way is possible inTweak. b) Each new widget needs to implement each exporter. But"saving everything by default" strategy has a problem of compatibilitybecause even just one change of variable name makes trouble for oldversion. Especially it is problematic for sharing in Internet. So Idin't choose this strategy.

WebDAV is used as the server. Both StackWiki and Tinlizzie doesn'tneed server side logic, but simple storage is required. WebDAV is thebest option for that matter. Even version control system can beplugged in the server with Subversion modlule in Apache for free,Javascript Workspace

Javascript Workspace is a simple web application. It uses bareJavascript on client, and Ruby CGI on server. It behave like aSmalltalk Workspace, and the contents are managed same manner as Wiki.

Let me make sure about workspace again. Workspace is a text editor,and it has two additional commands "do it" and "print it". Do itcommand envokes a source code selected by user, and print it commandoutput the result into cursor position. The function is similar toREPL shell on dynamic language, but the use case is slightlydifferent. A typical way to use workspace is as an explanation ofprogram. An author writes example source code inside thedocumentation, so that a user can try actual function while reading atext. Namely, REPL is two ways dialog between a machine and a human,but workspace is tree ways conversation among a machine, an author,and a user.

Workspace is indispensable tool for Smalltak though, which doesn'tmean only for Smalltalk. It would be nice if there is a workspace forJavascript language. This was the initial motivation of JavascriptWorkspace. And then, it was a natural consequence that Wiki was usedto save the content because Javascript lives on web browserintrinsically, and there are no way to save to local disk.

During the development, however, I realize that it can be more thanjust a workspace in terms of media. Javascript workspace has onlysimple user interface, which includes a couple of buttons and one bigtext area. Even there are no hyper link nor emphasized text. Butvariety things can be happend from such minimal configuration bysource code. Hyper link is enable to make from location property, richtext can be shown to modify DOM tree, and even game can be made to setup event hander. Source code can do everthing.

Just one textbox on a web page is a very radical idea. This iscompletely opposite direction to current trend of rich internetapplication. Web application consists with number of hidden functionsthese days, but Javascript Workspace can not have any invisibleinformation. Everything what it does is shown to you as source codeentirely on the screen. Javascritp Workspace looks like dangerous asit runs any Javascript code, but in fact, it is a quite safe system.

The idea of uset interface of Javascript Workspace is adopted toOMeta/JS.TileScript

TileScript uses Scriptaculous as GUI library and WebDAV for serverstorage. JSON is used for its data format.

A TileScript document consists with one or more paragraphs, and aparagraph is either Javascript code, "tile script", or HTMLexpression. A tile script is set of tiles, which each tile representssome syntactical element in a programming language. A user can connecttiles to construct a program with drag and drop. This is an easy wayto make a program avoiding syntax error. Javascript is used torepresent more complicated program than tile script. And HTML is usedas annotation. It can be seen as rich version of Javascript Workspace.

The initial motivation of TileScript was to remake eToys on the webenvironment. The research had got started by making tile available onweb browser. I considered to use Lively Kernel (SVG), but it wasunnecessary if Table element in HTML DOM is used astile. Scriptaculous is used to keep the source code simple.

After tile is ported, then next step was eToys environment itselfwhich includes event handling, scheduling, and bitmap animation,etc. But those issues seemed too difficult for nature of web document.

Flow layout, which actual position of document elements aredynamically changed by reader's browser environment, is a significantfeature of web. An author don't specify concrete position of elements,but rather care about logical structure. And then, a part of documentwhich can not be shown on the screen is accessable by a verticalscrool bar.

On the other hand, eToys provides page layout, which size and positionof elements is fixed, and presume particular screen size. Althogh, itis quite fit as a metaphor of physical paper, and best for a graphicalenvironment like eToys, but clumsy operation like zooming andhorizontal scrool is required.

Because ultimate goal of TileScript was not just reinventing eToys,but investigating further possibility, flow layout is adopted toTileScript. But still absolute coordination can be supported in formof embeded object even in flow layout. TileScript provides variablewatcher like eToys, but those widget is also layouted along with flow.And then

Now I'm working on next version of Javascript Workspace, whichespecially its target application is Active Essays. Our group havefound that Javascript is quite reasonable tool to show some ideas ofcomputer science. One reason is language's simplicity, and other oneis easiness of collaboration. We have a lot of new ideas aboutprogramming language, and some of the part should be simple enough tounderstand even by junior high student. I believe my tool can be usedto explain such ideas.

The problem is any project intoroduced here is not intended for realuse, rather just for demo or prototype of further real development. Soit is not be so useful as it looks because it includes tooexperimental aspect, too fragile, or too slow. Now I'm thinking thatit is not bad idea if I make somewhat stable version of them. Even itmight not have exotic feature like tile script, but only basic andsimple functions are enough to play with everyone. I really like myfirst idea of Javascript Workspace, which has only simple text. Iadmit it is extreme, so next version might support emphasized text andinline image (basic HTML elements) at least.

Since I’m not liveblogging Ars Electronica (it appears I’d need a new battery or two) here are a few links to those who are giving more coverage:

Joi Ito, the curator of this year’s “A New Cultural Economy” conference (first Ars 08 post, Flickr set).

David Weinberger is doing a valiant job of liveblogging “A New Cultural Economy” (first Ars 08 post).

Rather than the conferences, the art is being discussed on the SHOWstudio blog (first Ars 08 post).

Here are more Flickr folks: pieceoplastic, Judo10, Karli2000, and fumi.

Finally, for those who want to see presentations for themselves, there’s the Ars webcasts. I see a live Windows Media stream now and it looks like downloads (in some format) are coming. I don’t know if the downloads will include all the festival conferences, but there was certainly professional dual camera work happening both yesterday and today.