009: Writing, with John Saddington

We had a great conversation with indie Mac developer John Saddington about writing and his new app Desk PM, which is now available in the Mac App Store. We talk about life, death and doing things that matter with that short time in between. To start things off, Bryan brings up flash fiction and asks if limitations can actually help creativity. Sam puts on his software engineering hat as he asks whether or not programming should be considered a foreign language. And to close things up, Sean asks the group what the evolution of writing could look like.

Episode 009: Writing, with John Saddington

In this episode:

Desk: tell me a story

We had a great conversation with Indie Mac Developer John Saddington (a hacker, a human, a doer) about writing and his new app Desk PM, which is now available in the Mac App Store. We talk about life, death and doing things that matter.

To start things off, Bryan brings up flash fiction and asks if limitations can actually help creativity. Sam puts on his software engineering hat as he asks whether or not programming should be considered a foreign language. And to close things up, Sean asks the group what the evolution of writing could look like.

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Show Notes & Links:

The websites we talked about and references to everything we said.

Intro: About John Saddington and Desk PM

Apple’s Best App of 2014
About John Saddington
Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine Shoutout for Pressgram
Stop Screwing Around on Netflix
The Iron Yard
Y Combinator
@imyke: Hey guys. I quit my job today…
BOOK: The Hard Things About Hard Things
Paul Graham: The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups
Origins of Desk
Desk: Official Website
VIDEOs: Desk Dev Docs, Marketing Videos, Demos, etc.
MAC APP STORE: Desk - Writing, Blogging, Notetaking, Journaling, and Productivity for WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, MovableType, Typepad, Squarespace, and More
Storytelling is a 10,000 Year Old Technology

Bryan Brush: Flash Fiction (Starts at 13:48)

What is Flash Fiction?
What is a Haiku?
The Psychology of Limitation
Twitter’s Chaotic Creation
Twitter’s 140 Character Limit
Twitter’s “Botmaker” Filters Out Spam
In A Creative Rut? Change Your Environment
John Saddington’s Post on Quitting Twitter
@Saddington
BOOK: The Power of Less by Leo Babauta
PODCAST: The ProGuide — Episode 057: John Saddington & Desk PM - Tell Me a Story
Push Boundaries for Innovation
VIDEO: Tightest Parallel Parking in 2014 for the Guinness World Records
VIDEO: Breaking that 2014 Record for Parallel Parking
Red Bull is a Content Marketing Juggernaut
Sam’s Twitter Avatar
@SamBantner
Sam’s Tweet: Having $#!+ to do…
Protecting Your Own Time
Let’s Do This Thing
Big Blank Canvas
The Dash
VIDEO: Khan Academy — Area Under the Curve
Why Write Short Stories At All?

Sam Bantner: Computer Programming as a Foreign Language (Starts at 26:15)

Washington Post — States could count computer programming as foreign language skill
Code as a New Foreign Language Requirement
Stanford — Programming as a Second Language by Justin Solomon (2004)
Translation Studies
Translate Ideas to Code
John Quijada, and Ithkuil — the Language He Invented
Hour of Code
More Hour of Code Courses
Computer Science Is Not a Foreign Language
Steve Jobs — “I view computer science as a liberal art.”
Digital Literacy vs. Digital Fluency
English in Computing
Object-Oriented Programming
Wikipedia: Wiki Game
GAME: 5 Clicks to Jesus

Sean Doran: The Evolution of Writing (Starts at 39:05)

PODCAST: The ProGuide — Segment “Working on Desk”
VIDEO: Bret Victor — The Human Representation of Thought
Writing: An Art or Science?
The Paradox of Painful Art
PHOTO: Design Like DaVinci
The Cornell Note-taking System
VIDEO: Everything is a Remix
What Does Feature Creep Look Like?
Arena Tech Night
Socrates didn’t write a damn thing
KICKSTARTER: The Hemingwrite
About Hugh MacLeod
Sublime Text
Adobe Photoshop CS3
Hugh MacLeod — “10. The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props.
The Gettysburg Address
James Joyce and his pencil
Van Gogh's use of Colors. Pigments and Palette.
DESK: Capture > Write > Publish

Outro (Starts at 53:12)

John Saddington’s Official Website
Origins of John.Do
John Doe
Desk Writing Community
10 Days to a Better Blog
Contact All of the Above
We're on iTunes
On Twitter: @AbovePodcast