Sometimes outside of that physics lab. fbz over at knit yak (https://knityak.com) has been making very impressive computational "knitwear" for 4+ years.
> The yarn used is a 100% machine washable acrylic in black and white. Ships with source code, namely the command line one-liner that generated the image that is knit into the scarf.
I never expected to read this for any of the clothing I wear!
Yes! I once had to translate this from english to swedish for my mother and wow. I was struck by how much it seemed like I was reciting assembler code.
It isn’t. In this environment the bugging is terrible though. You can’t just insert the cursor, instead you have to sequentially delete your good code to get back to your error.
Edit to add: I wouldn’t be surprised if there are more knitting programmers today than all computer programming languages combined. Just the size and pervasive presence of Walmart or Joann’s yarn and fabric sections makes me almost certain.
The really nice yarn is not found at either of those places. You want to see serious knitters, find a dedicated yarn store, or check out a yarn convention. It's like an xmas movie where the shoppers are fighting over the last skein of yarn from a well known dyer.
This talk about programmable knitting machines is worth a watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02h74L1PmaU -- it goes into more depth about the details of their operation, including an absolutely wild and apparently official graphical programming language called "KnitPaint" that reminds me of the esoteric language Piet.
Computers and looms have always had a close-knit history (sorry I had to do it). During the industrial revolution there was a ton of innovation in looms, because producing fabric was very labor intensive. These early industrial looms are just sophisticated mechanical computers.
I believe that the reason early computers used punched cards, was because it was a technology already widely used for looms. Babbage just looked for what was already available for his Difference Engine.
What's interesting is that this idea has (very loose) roots in antiquity. Many beliefs had deities of fate that controlled the destinies of mortals by weaving.
The guy who showed it could be done automatically was Jacquard who built an automatic loom directed by punched cards, patented in 1804. Hollerith later took the idea but never acknowledged Jacquard's massive contribution.
The professor which lectured the algorithms course at my university (and some others) published a paper some time ago which seems relevant: http://pages.di.unipi.it/bodei/publ-40/Fun07.pdf "Knitting for fun: a recursive sweater"
Ralph Griswold, designer of the Icon programming language, was very interested in weaving and maintained an “On-Line Digital Archive of Documents on Weaving and Related Topics”:
https://www2.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/webdocs.html
Knitting isn’t coding anymore than manually executing a C program with pencil and paper is. Designing or modifying a knitting pattern on the other hand is.
Swapping out nytimes.com for https://www.nytimes3xbfgragh.onion/ and opening in Tor has always gotten around the paywall for me - they don't seem to limit Tor users
When I was a coding instructor, one of my students showed a knitting pattern. I immediately understood why she was one of the best students I have ever had.
My partner is into knitting and what has struck me about it is the highly variable semantics and syntax of knitting patterns. Seems to be few standards as to how to describe how something should be knitted.
Something isn't "coding" just because it involves following a set of instructions... you could argue that a knitting pattern is an algorithm of sorts, but that doesn't make it coding.
conceptually yes, but not so if your fine motor skills are poor. also dont understimate the manual labour involved in repetition, the computer makes it easier.
Is leaving a piece of metal out in the rain coding? Is having coffee coding? Are snakes coding? Is a bad grade on a test coding? Is a musical note coding? Is a red gemstone coding? Is an even worse grade on a test coding? Is something found in an oyster shell coding?
> Is leaving a piece of metal out in the rain coding? Is having coffee coding? Are snakes coding? Is a bad grade on a test coding? Is a musical note coding? Is a red gemstone coding? Is an even worse grade on a test coding? Is something found in an oyster shell coding?
Rust, Java, Python, C++, C#, Ruby, C, Perl. God you guys totally missed it.
Another musical note (F#), a really bad grade on a test (D), a lady (Ada), more coffee (CoffeeScript), a follow on movie (SQL), a speech characteristic (Lisp), a branding image (Logo), A factory worker (Assembler), A Canal, Panama.
My wife knits. Yes, it’s like coding: it has a language, there are algorithms, instruction-sets and tools. And sometimes bugs you have to back-step to correct.
In fact some of the earliest programmable machines were weaving looms, automatically generating complex patterns. And, of course, this spurred the earliest protests against job losses to automation, with the Luddite movement.
My girlfriend knits too, and I think it's a toss up on which one of us curses more. Me when I realize the stupid thing I did which had been eluding me for the past hour, or her when she realizes how many rows she has to undo to get back to the point the incorrect stitch was made. At least I can just highlight, delete or just hit cmd-z. It can take her quite a bit more time to undo.
Without knowing what is being knitted, you may not be able to perform those techniques easily. Try that for a lace pattern with a finer yarn. Even frogging can be difficult.
So, if the comment isn't negative, then what is its content? Your explication https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19950959 points out the puns/jokes/over-literal descriptions (which, indeed, I missed on first read), but I still don't understand what the point of the comment was—the descriptions don't help me understand anything about the idea of knitting as coding.
It's a comment. It's meant to be fun -- the title got to have fun and play around with words, why can't we?
How I thought this would go: 30 upvotes and tons of people replying with more clever/forced programming languages fitting in that format.
How this went: no one gets it because everyone here is so ready for a fight that they don't even try to understand what people are saying, and the downvotes pile up. Deng swoops in and posts his generic "dont dismiss people's comments" message, which is hilarious because that's exactly what he did and it's exactly what you did.
There's two aspects to a joke that are equally important: one is being clever, the other is reading the room. A witty remark delivered in a snide tone followed up with a hot punchline is good for some lulz, but it's kinda like making a joke at the expense of the bartender who works at the comedy club every night.
reminds me of that software development conference where a developer could receive a tattoo with a favorite language icon from an O'Reilly book cover - thus becoming a better programmer, no doubt!
