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Every essay and idea on the site is organised under one of these six themes. They overlap constantly — that's the point.

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Mindstorms · 3 essaysPapert & ConstructionismSeymour Papert, the Logo turtle, and the radical idea that we learn best by building things we care about.The Dynabook · 2 essaysAlan Kay & SmalltalkPersonal computing as a medium, objects all the way down, and the still-unfinished revolution of Smalltalk.Origins · 0 essaysHistory of ProgrammingFrom Lovelace and Turing to Lisp, Sketchpad, and the Mother of All Demos — where our ideas actually came from.What's next · 1 essayFuture of ProgrammingLive coding, end-user programming, direct manipulation, and the question Bret Victor keeps asking: is this really it?Tools for thought · 3 essaysComputing as a Tool for ThinkingBush, Licklider, Engelbart, Nelson, and Iverson — the dream of machines that augment the human intellect.Languages · 1 essayLanguages & ParadigmsLisp, APL, Forth, Prolog, Smalltalk — the languages that each carry a whole way of seeing computation.
Mindstorms

Mindstorms is a living resource on the great ideas of programming and computing — Seymour Papert and constructionism, Alan Kay and Smalltalk, the history and future of programming, and computing as a tool for thinking.

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© 2026 Mindstorms. Made for the love of powerful ideas.

A living resource on programming, computing, and thinking. Text shared under CC BY 4.0.