Introduction to Live Coding

“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.” Starting my understanding of live coding with such a statement really set things in perspective for me: why give a non-traditional form of coding and performance a tradition definition? As someone who is drawn to experimentation and exploring the limitations and possibilities of different programs and techniques, the idea of live coding as something that resists being pinned down feels right. It suggests that live coding is less about arriving at a finished product and more about staying in process. The emphasis on not defining it too rigidly made me think about how often coding is treated as something that must be efficient and goal-oriented, rather than exploratory or expressive. Live coding seems to push back against that mindset by valuing risk and improvisation. I also found myself thinking about the idea of “thinking in public” and how vulnerable that can be. Showing the screen and showing the code as it’s being written means showing uncertainty and mistakes in real time. Instead of hiding behind polished results what live coding seems to do is invite the audience into the process of creation itself. That feels intimidating but at the same time freeing, especially in contrast to how coding is usually preformed behind the scenes.