FatFinger by Daniel Temkin
I chose to read Daniel Temkin’s essay “Entropy and FatFinger: Challenging the Compulsiveness of Code with Programmatic Anti-Styles” from the Leonardo journal. He has created two esoteric languages that challenge the logic and order of code. He begins by writing:
“The style of most programming languages is aspirational; they connote orderliness and structure, in the face of heaps of evidence that bugs are endemic to code.”
This statement resonates with my experience as a programmer. Each language comes with its own syntax that I have to squeeze my intentions into. I think about learning OpenFrameworks in C++ now after having experience with JavaScript, which is higher level and further from the machine. I get frustrated with having to tell the program things that I assume it should know already. However, I appreciate how this should eventually, theoretically give me more control over the computer.
After introducing Entropy and FatFinger, Temkin writes:
“Both these projects speak to the actual experience of coding, which is fraught with error. Entropy makes error inevitable, while FatFinger tolerates a sloppiness of text (and of the thought behind it) that ordinarily would never pass muster with the interpreter. They work against the compulsiveness of programming. They encourage a style that is more accepting of the inevitable presence of error and of the limited capacity of the programmer to control the machine.”
FatFinger is JavaScript but which tolerates typos – for example, “dokkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkumint” can replace “document” and still get evaluated correctly. The results can be hilarious to read, and learning the algorithm for how the code is interpreted was interesting to me. But I wonder if it doesn’t go far enough. FatFinger still enforces syntax, and on a higher level, programmers are still structuring their actions based on the language.
Are we just putting more distance between the human and the machine, by fitting the machine to our sloppy standards? Are there ways in which FatFinger can extend beyond typos to syntax and structure – as Temkin writes, a more “gestural” way of instructing a machine? I think of Rebecca Fiebrink’s Wekinator, where users can simply wave their arm and teach the computer via machine learning. Would programmers actually lose control over the machine in this process?
Ultimately, the dance between humans and computers is complex. I appreciate Temkin’s esoteric languages, and wonder how we could use those ideas to push further.
References
Temkin, Daniel. “Entropy and FatFinger: Challenging the Compulsiveness of Code with Programmatic Anti-Styles.” Leonardo, Volume 51, No. 4, Aug. 2018. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/leon_a_01651.