Live programming has attracted much attention for eliminating the gulf between code and execution. To design live programming systems, we first need to understand what we are developing. Once we gain domain-specific knowledge of the target applications, we create user interfaces to edit the running application, such as scrubbing sliders, color palettes, and timeline interfaces. The key to the fluid programming experience of live programming is the combination of deep understanding of the target applications and adoption of interactive user interfaces.

In this talk, I will discuss the liveness of programming systems in light of user interface design. I will introduce user interfaces for programming and discuss the importance of integrating graphical representations into programming environments. I will extend the scope of “liveness” by describing two kinds of interactions, physical and developer-user, and provide insights on designing future live programming systems.

Jun Kato is a Human-Computer Interaction researcher at National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Japan. He has focused on improving Programming Experience (PX) by creating toolkits and integrated development environments. He has worked for Microsoft and Adobe Research and received a Ph.D. from The University of Tokyo under the supervision of Prof. Takeo Igarashi in 2014.