The answer to this question was somewhat unclear to me before I took this class. I had watched an IM showcase performance from this course before, but apart from finding it very cool I wasn’t sure what the ideas behind it were. The book Live Coding: A User’s Manual quotes live coder David Ogborn on why live coding should not have a fixed definition:
“To define something is to stake a claim to its future, to make a claim about what it should be or become. This makes me hesitate to define live coding.”
As mentioned in the text, Computer Science textbooks and other sources where static code is printed often become outdated pretty quickly due to the ever-changing nature of coding practices. This holds even more true for live coding, which is improvisatory and involves thinking on the fly, writing and rewriting all in a public performance.
I liked the reflectiveness this reading incited, especially when it came to questions such as what it means to be live. I had not been aware of the etymology of programming (“writing in public”). Given the isolationist nature of programming today, we could say that we have strayed a lot from these ancient origins, further highlighting the need for live coding. Opening up this usually private activity to the public provides a liberating creative aspect which is also helpful in building community.
Finally, I want to touch upon the analogy to musicians they made for live coding in a creative context. This was particularly the most exciting part for me. I have watched live jazz performances and been floored by the open jam sessions where random people would come together with their instruments and jam on the spot, not having met or practised together before. I do not know much about music theory, so I just learned that what they usually do is choose notes from a particular chord sheet. Live coding gives even more freedom to the performers and basically makes them the on-the-spot composers, which is daunting but exhilarating to imagine. Overall, this reading made me look forward to learning more about live coding and actually practising it myself.