In this writing, instead of answering the question, “What is Live Coding?” with a fixed definition, the author explains it as making software live by interacting with each other, with software, and with the act of coding itself. What I like about this writing is how the author looks at live coding as “thinking in public” and as communication between the performers and the crowd. In live coding, the performers openly share their mental process through codes, while the audience gets to question and reflect on it as they follow the journey. Live coding differs from traditional computing, where we only focus on refined code rather than the process of coding itself.
The most interesting part for me was the following: “Live coding asks questions about liveness, inviting us to reflect on what it means to be live—to have bodies, to communicate, to act.” It made me think of live coding as a collective and performative ritual where everyone in the room is connected through the code-as-interface. I think live coding is an interesting and relevant way of performance that makes coding more accessible and visible, especially now when software is deeply entangled with our everyday lives.