Human-in-the-loop program synthesis for live coding

Abstract

Live Coding is a creative coding practice, where the act of programming itself constitutes a performance. The code written during a Live Coding performance often generates media, for example a continuous stream of music or video. One of the challenges of Live Coding is in finding a balance in the language design, such that the language is both expressive enough for the artist, as well as simple enough to be programmed in real-time. In order to reduce the overhead of manually coding every part of a Live Coding performance, we propose a tool for Live Coding that leverages program synthesis to simplify the process. Program synthesis retains the "show your code" ethos of Live Coding performances, while also lowering the barrier to entry to the performance practice.