For an upcoming talk: how have different fields/facets of your identity inspired you to build something technical? Was something you created based on anything non-technical that you found fascinating or passionate about?
RT for 👀 appreciated :)
Conversation
As a designer/illustrator I wanted to turn the worlds from my drawings into generative art. Learned about shape grammars for architecture - for that wanted to make a DSL for defining the grammars, which led me to PL design,
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…which led me to getting annoyed with Java (as somebody who liked well designed things), which ultimately led my to this weird research language called Rust, which led to a failed attempt to study CS, which led to a career in software, which lead to industrial PL research.
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I still think the background in art has been incredibly useful to me, especially the art and design history and art practice stuff I learned in art school. Similar approaches transfer across to programming and research quite nicely IMO.
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Lots of creation is about seeking out influences, developing a sense of taste, and understanding that even the most celebrated of works are based on long histories of experimentation. Stuff we do in type theory, programming language research, software engineering is no different.
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It was really hard, but the biggest thing that the few weeks/months of art school taught me was to abandon my hopes at ‘being original’, and set me up to be the creative person I am to day. I'm forever thankful for that, and wish more technical people could have that experience.