Hi Bret

Various members of CDG (especially including you) -- and elsewhere -- occasionally put out "authorings" -- usually as a web page -- that use nice combinations of media: excellent rhetoric employing text, images, animations, interactive objects, and sometimes actual opportunities for "readers" to "understand by writing" to add programmatic explorations of their own.

But there is no real authoring system for potential *writers*. This seems way out of sorts for 2015 given that there are actually more than enough resources in the standard browsers to make a good authoring system. And it's also out of sorts with regard to the "living lab" benefits for CDG. In any past era -- RAND, Engelbart, Parc, etc. -- such a group of talents would band together to make an authoring tool both for research purposes but also one robust enough to be used for day to day work and progress.

This is a "smaller" project than a new programming language for "everything" -- it addresses the kind of active media that has already found a nice balance in the world of expressing ideas. It does require a programming language to be invented, and the design could be a nice first pass at a more comprehensive design effort.

To pick two top talents that could be combined to do the main design on one hand and the main implementation on the other, I would offer up the names -- Bret Victor and Alex Warth ... And there are others in CDG who would be good to include as well.

What do you think? (It could also be a good topic for the Jan 9th "advance"!)

Cheers

Alan