Now that the thesis paper is finally done and Fnk is just a raw software project, I’d like to post some of the bibliography I used on the original project and comment on how they were used so they can help other people research similar subjects.

The first thing to say is that I use the term “bibliography” a bit loosely. In fact, almost all of the references used in my project were found online – not all random personal pages or Wikipedia articles, mind you, but articles and books published in electronic form, most of them found through Google Scholar. Maybe I was lucky because part of the research I was doing was fundamentally based on computer science, a field that’s obviously better versed with the Internet, but the fact that I could always reach deep down to the original sources of something from my own computer without making concessions still amazes me. I had to (digitally) buy a few of the papers used though, so it doesn’t meant the research was entirely free.

So without further ado, here’s a commented and linked bibliography for the Fnk thesis paper and initial development. It’s in the same order as used in my final paper (sorted by last name of the author). Also, please be aware that many of those links are links to direct PDF downloads.

• ARS Electronica Website – ARS Electronica is probably the biggest festival for Arts & Technology there is. I used their website for general contextual information about the field.
• Interaction in Art and Technology, Linda Candy and Ernest Edmonds – reference used when discussing the convergence between art and technology.
• Computers in Early Childhood Mathematics, Douglas H. Clements – used when talking about how computer language can be used as educational tools.
• Deconstructing Installation Art: Fine Art and Media Art, 1986-2006, Graham Coulter-Smith – a wonderful online book, I used some quotes from it when explaining how installation art and multimedia art is seen in comparison to the established arts.
• Considerações sobre o eu e o corpo em Lacan, Léia Priszkulnik and Michele Cukiert – a general overview about Jacques Lacan‘s mirror stage, used when talking about how people interact with installation artwork. In Brazilian Portuguese.
• Dataflow Architectures, David E. Culler – wonderful reference from 1986, helped me understand how dataflow structures work. This is part of MIT’s Laboratory for Computer Science wonderful online collection.
• Introduction to Data Flow Schemas, Jack B. Dennis and John B. Fosseen – another paper from MIT’s Laboratory for Computer Science, this was pretty much the paper that made sense out of the dataflow execution model to me. It’s from all the way back from 1973.
• Emoção Art.ficial Website – a biennial expo in São Paulo, Brazil about art & technology. I used this reference when talking about the art/technology context. In Brazilian Portuguese.
• The strange allure of making your own fonts, Jason Fagone – captivating article about FontStruct. I used quotes from it to talk about the kind of experimental/amateur work I wanted to allow Fnk users to create.
• FILE – Festival Internacional de Linguagem Eletrônica – an art/technology festival originally from São Paulo, Brazil; I used this reference, again, when talking about the art/technology festival context.
• Flash Player 10: Dazzling Effects, Better Performance, Runs on Linux, Scott Gilbertson – this article talks about new features from Flash Player 10, used to support my choice for this version of the Flash plugin.
• SilverLight Penetration, Michael Hanes – this reference was used to point both the lack of actual penetration statistics for SilverLight, and the indication that where known, it’s rather low.
• Emergence: The connected lives of ants, brains, cities, and software, Steven Johnson – quintessential book, but used for a pretty mundane reason: when talking about StarLogo, I pointed how this book has a whole chapter dedicated to the language. I used my own copy of the book for this.
• Advances in dataflow programming languages, Wesley M. Johnston, J. R. Paul Hanna, and Richard J. Millar – a more modern article about dataflow structures, used to put a lot of things in context specially when comparing dataflow and imperative language approaches.
• Squeak Etoys, Children & Learning, Alan Kay – used when talking about the kind of visual programming languages that are used as educational tools for children.
• Lowering the Barriers to Programming: a survey of programming environments and languages for novice programmers, Caitlin Kelleher and Randy Pausch – used when talking about advantages of learning programming languages (mostly about Logo).
• 10 Questions with Jonathan and Peter of Picnik.com, Jake McKee – a nice interview about Picnik.com‘s goals and expectations, this was also used to defend my idea of a free editing environment with no clear determination.
• Microsoft Releases Silverlight 2, Already Reaching One in Four Consumers Worldwide – another article mentioned in reference to SilverLight’s either low or unknown installation penetration statistics – the article mentions “one in four consumers worldwide” but never backs that up with any kind of source.
• Adobe Flash Player Version Penetration, Millward Brown – Flash’s well known penetration statistics, used when backing my preference for the platform when creating Fnk and when I state that I expect Flash 10 to reach critical penetration in a few months.
• The great Logo Adventure – Discovering Logo On and Off the computer, Jim Muller – another reference I used when talking about Logo, and teaching programming to kids.
• Mindstorms: children, computers, and powerful ideas, Seymour Papert – seminal book, also used as a reference to kids and learning programming, specially about Logo. As the name implies, the work covered in this book inspired the creation of Lego’s Mindstorms. I bought it in digital form.
• PROCESSING 1.0 (BETA) Website – Processing was one of the programming environments I cited as an example, and I used its website as the main reference for that.
• MAX at Seventeen, Miller Puckette – Miller Puckette is the original creator of Max/MSP, and this article covers much of his experience with that kind of material. It was used to talk about the sort of development one expects from visual dataflow languages: a more experimental, free approach.
• Puredata community Website – Pd was a program created by MillerPuckette after Max. It was mentioned on my text and the program’s website was used as the main reference.
• StarLogo: An Environment for Decentralized Modeling and Decentralized Thinking, Mitch Resnick – used when talking about what StarLogo is about.
• Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests, Jeffrey Rubin – used when planning and creating the usability tests used during development. Even if this is from 1994, this book covers the subject of user testing pretty well and it was easy to adapt its insights to my needs. I used my college’s copy of the book.
• Interactive Music Systems, Robert Rowe – this is a nice book that covers how sound relates to interactive systems. I used a brief part of it to explain how interaction relates to the generation of audio and visual data; most of this discussion was removed on the final text of my paper, but some of its insights still remained with me, so I decided to keep it on the bibliography. I used a copy borrowed from my thesis advisor, although the author actually has the relevant chapter (1st) available for download at his personal website.
• Development Platforms for Casual Games, Phil Steinmeyer – nice article at GamaSutra, used to sustain my statement that it’s difficult to estimate the currently available Java versions.
• Proofs of Correctness of Dataflow Programs, Joseh E. Stoy – another paper from MIT’s Laboratory for Computer Science, it was pretty much the introductory paper I had to learn about the intricacies of the dataflow execution paradigm. I talk a bit more about it in this blog post.
• vvvv a multipurpose toolkit Website – vvvv’s website, used as the source of information when I mentioned the program.
• MAX/MSP/JITTER Website – Max’s website, also used as the source when I talk about the program.