Tech Talk: Beautiful and Useless Coding with Allison Parrish

Tech Talk: Beautiful and Useless Coding with Allison Parrish

Author: Adam Gordon Bell - Software Developer November 16, 2019 Duration: 52:20

Tech Talks are in-depth technical discussions.

Generative Art involves using the tools of computation to creative ends. Adam talks to Allison Parrish about how she uses word vectors to create unique poetry. Word vectors represent a fundamentally new tool for working with text.

Adam and Allison also talk about creative computer programming and building twitter bots and what makes something art.

"Computer programming is beautiful and useless. That's the reason that you should want to do it is not because it's going to get you a job, because it has a particular utility, but simply for the same reasons that you would pick up oil paints or do origami or something. It's something that has like an inherent beauty to it that is worthy of studying."

"For my purpose as an artist and as like someone who teaches programming to artists and designers, I want to emphasize that it's not only a vocational thing, it's not only a way for building things like to do apps for that matter. It's not only a way to, you know, write useful applications that help to organize communities or help to do scientific work and other like good applications of programming and software engineering. But there is this like very essential, very core part of computer programming that is just joyful. Um, that's about understanding your own mind in different ways and understanding the world in different lands."

Experimental Creative Writing with the Vectorized Word

Every Icon

Word2Vect

Allison Parrish's Website

Tracery

Articulations

Every Word


In CoRecursive: Coding Stories, host Adam Gordon Bell sits down with software developers to explore the human narratives woven into the technology we build. This isn't a technical interview focused on syntax or best practices, but a deeper dive into the pivotal moments, creative struggles, and personal insights that shape how code comes to life. Each conversation reveals the context behind decisions, the stories of failure and breakthrough, and the often-overlooked human elements that define our craft. As a software developer himself, Adam guides these discussions with genuine curiosity, pulling out anecdotes and reflections you won't hear anywhere else. The podcast lives in the intersection of News, Education, and How-To, but through the lens of lived experience. You'll hear about the origins of influential projects, the rationale behind unconventional solutions, and the personal journeys that lead developers to their philosophies. Listening feels like pulling up a chair with thoughtful peers, offering a richer understanding of the profession that goes far beyond the screen. This is where the abstract becomes concrete, through the stories and people behind the code.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

CoRecursive: Coding Stories
Podcast Episodes
Story: Sloot Digital Coding System [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:50
Lost treasure. Conspiracy theories. Impossible tech demos. Jan Sloot claimed to have invented revolutionary data compression that could fit a full movie into a tiny smart card chip. Top executives and investors witnessed…
The Science of Learning to Code [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 50:45
Learning to code can feel impossible. Like facing a sheer rock wall with no ropes or harnesses. But what if there was a path up the mountain? A trail blazed smooth by master coders who went before? In this episode, we'll…
Story: A Dark Room [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 40:42
Have you ever been frustrated with your job? Maybe not burnt out, but getting close to there? You used to love what you did, and it felt so creative and empowering, but then it starts to feel a bit more cookie cutter. Ha…
Story: Quitting (And Then Rejoining) Stack Overflow [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 53:28
Today, we meet Ben Dumke-von der Ehe, one of the early developers on the Stack Overflow team. He was on the front lines as the platform transformed how programmers worked. And he embodies the spirit of Stack Overflow: It…
Story: From Project Management to Data Compression Innovator [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 59:23
How do you accomplish something massive over time? I've had the chance to meet with a number of exceptional software developers and it's something I always wonder about. Today, I might have an answer with the incredible…
Story: JSON vs XML [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 49:56
Today's guest is Douglas Crockford. He's sharing the story of JSON, his discovery of JavaScript's good parts, and his approach to finding a simple way to build software. Also, his battles against XML, against complexity,…
Story: Sun's Mobile Blunders [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:45
Shai Almog worked at Sun on Mobile JVMs just as phones started to turn from phones into something else. Sun had deep expertise in mobile development, and amazing engineering driven culture and relationships with manufact…
Story: Shipping Graphing Calculator [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 46:47
I've been on many projects that get canceled. We're building cool stuff. We're going above and beyond, and we're excited. But the project encounters reality, shifting priorities, or budgeting constraints, and the work ne…
Story: The Unfulfilled Engineer [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:04
Nothing good comes from being insecure about your worth, especially at your job. That's what today's episode is about. That's what today's guest is here to discuss. It's a slow burn, but if you listen to the end, I think…