{"id":46859,"url":"https://github.com/iamwilhelm/awesome-thinking-tools","name":"awesome-thinking-tools","description":"List of links for awesome thinking tools","projects_count":118,"last_synced_at":"2026-08-03T23:00:19.467Z","repository":{"id":66512975,"uuid":"211369714","full_name":"iamwilhelm/awesome-thinking-tools","owner":"iamwilhelm","description":"List of links for awesome thinking tools","archived":false,"fork":false,"pushed_at":"2019-11-01T17:31:58.000Z","size":19,"stargazers_count":3,"open_issues_count":0,"forks_count":0,"subscribers_count":1,"default_branch":"master","last_synced_at":"2026-07-15T18:04:22.231Z","etag":null,"topics":[],"latest_commit_sha":null,"homepage":"","language":null,"has_issues":true,"has_wiki":null,"has_pages":null,"mirror_url":null,"source_name":null,"license":null,"status":null,"scm":"git","pull_requests_enabled":true,"icon_url":"https://github.com/iamwilhelm.png","metadata":{"files":{"readme":"readme.md","changelog":null,"contributing":"contributing.md","funding":null,"license":null,"code_of_conduct":"code-of-conduct.md","threat_model":null,"audit":null,"citation":null,"codeowners":null,"security":null,"support":null,"governance":null,"roadmap":null,"authors":null}},"created_at":"2019-09-27T17:27:08.000Z","updated_at":"2025-05-11T22:02:02.000Z","dependencies_parsed_at":null,"dependency_job_id":"d0ab049f-b7df-4b87-8484-e6ddda5ebb3c","html_url":"https://github.com/iamwilhelm/awesome-thinking-tools","commit_stats":null,"previous_names":[],"tags_count":0,"template":false,"template_full_name":null,"purl":"pkg:github/iamwilhelm/awesome-thinking-tools","repository_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/iamwilhelm%2Fawesome-thinking-tools","tags_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/iamwilhelm%2Fawesome-thinking-tools/tags","releases_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/iamwilhelm%2Fawesome-thinking-tools/releases","manifests_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/iamwilhelm%2Fawesome-thinking-tools/manifests","owner_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners/iamwilhelm","download_url":"https://codeload.github.com/iamwilhelm/awesome-thinking-tools/tar.gz/refs/heads/master","sbom_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/iamwilhelm%2Fawesome-thinking-tools/sbom","scorecard":null,"host":{"name":"GitHub","url":"https://github.com","kind":"github","repositories_count":286080680,"owners_count":36254488,"icon_url":"https://github.com/github.png","version":null,"created_at":"2022-05-30T11:31:42.601Z","updated_at":"2026-07-20T02:08:10.276Z","status":"online","status_checked_at":"2026-08-03T02:00:06.975Z","response_time":56,"last_error":null,"robots_txt_status":"success","robots_txt_updated_at":"2025-07-24T06:49:26.215Z","robots_txt_url":"https://github.com/robots.txt","online":true,"can_crawl_api":true,"host_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub","repositories_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories","repository_names_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repository_names","owners_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners"}},"created_at":"2024-01-14T11:15:03.722Z","updated_at":"2026-08-03T23:00:19.467Z","primary_language":null,"list_of_lists":false,"displayable":true,"categories":["License","Applications","Bicycle of the Mind","Projects","History","People","Reading lists","Technologies"],"sub_categories":["SpreadSheets","Notebooks","Why is programming so hard?","Languages","What does a tool for thinking look like?","Future of Programming","What's wrong with Infra?","What is Programming?","What's wrong with notebooks?"],"readme":"# Awesome Thinking Tools [![Awesome](https://awesome.re/badge.svg)](https://awesome.re)\n\n\u003e A curated list of thinking tools\n\n- \n\n## Bicycle of the Mind\n\n### What does a tool for thinking look like?\n\n- [As We May Think](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/303881/) by Vannevar Bush\n- [Man-computer Symbiosis](https://groups.csail.mit.edu/medg/people/psz/Licklider.html) by J.C.R. Licklider\n- [Augmenting Human Intellect](http://dougengelbart.org/content/view/138) by Douglas Engelbert\n- [Mother of All Demos [video]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI8r8D46JOY\u0026list=PL76DBC8D6718B8FD3\u0026index=8) by Douglas Engelbert\n- [A Few Words on Douglas Engelbert](http://worrydream.com/Engelbart/) by Bret Victor\n- [Machines to Think With [Chap 7]](http://www.rheingold.com/texts/tft/07.html#Chap07) by Howard Reingold\n- [Personal Dynamic Media](www.newmediareader.com/book_samples/nmr-26-kay.pdf) by Alan Kay and Adele Goldberg\n- [Thought as Technology](http://cognitivemedium.com/tat/index.html) by Michael Neilsen\n- [Magic Paper](http://cognitivemedium.com/magic_paper/index.html) by Michael Neilsen\n- [Using Artificial Intelligence to Augment Human Intelligence](https://distill.pub/2017/aia/) by Michael Nielsen\n- [Toward an exploratory medium for mathematics](http://cognitivemedium.com/emm/emm.html) by Michael Nielsen\n- [Against the Current](https://observablehq.com/@jashkenas/against-the-current-what-we-learned-from-eve-transcript) by Chris Granger\n- [Coding is Not the New Literacy](https://www.chris-granger.com/2015/01/26/coding-is-not-the-new-literacy/) by Chris Granger\n- [Eve: tackling a giant with a change in perspective [video]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_o-ZzgpiK8) by Chris Granger\n- [Inventing on Principle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUv66718DII) by Bret Victor\n- [Media for Thinking the Unthinkable](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUaOucZRlmE) by Bret Victor\n- [Kill Math](http://worrydream.com/KillMath/) by Bret Victor\n- [How can we develop transformative tools for thought?](https://numinous.productions/ttft/) by Andy Matuschak and Michael Neilsen\n- [Intuition Pumps [video]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q_mY54hjM0) by Daniel Dennett\n- [Putting Turing to Work [video]](https://www.heidelberg-laureate-forum.org/video/lecture-putting-turing-to-work.html) by Alan Kay\n\n### What is Programming?\n\n- [Three Tribes of Programming](https://josephg.com/blog/3-tribes/) by Joseph Gentle\n- [Programming as Theory Building](http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/Naur.pdf) by Peter Naur\n- [On the Expressive Power of Programming Languages](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43XaZEn2aLc) by Shriram Krishnamurthi\n- [Systems not Programs](https://shalabh.com/programmable-systems/systems-not-programs.html) by Shalabh Chaturvedi\n\n### Why is programming so hard?\n\n- [No Silver Bullet](http://worrydream.com/refs/Brooks-NoSilverBullet.pdf) by Fred Brooks\n  - [Summary](https://blog.acolyer.org/2016/09/06/no-silver-bullet-essence-and-accident-in-software-engineering/) by Adrian Colyer\n- [Out of the Tar Pit](http://curtclifton.net/papers/MoseleyMarks06a.pdf) by Ben Moseley and Peter Marks\n  - [Summary](https://blog.acolyer.org/2015/03/20/out-of-the-tar-pit/) by Adrian Colyer\n- [Learnable Programming](http://worrydream.com/LearnableProgramming/) by Bret Victor\n- [Law of Leaky Abstractions](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/11/11/the-law-of-leaky-abstractions/) by Joel Spolsky\n- [Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction](http://worrydream.com/LadderOfAbstraction/) by Bret Victor\n- [Yes You should Understand Backprop](https://medium.com/@karpathy/yes-you-should-understand-backprop-e2f06eab496b#.lbzzq2acs) by Andrej Karpathy\n- [Tangible Functional Programming [video]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faJ8N0giqzw) by Conal Elliot\n- [We don't really know how to compute](https://www.infoq.com/presentations/We-Really-Dont-Know-How-To-Compute/) by Gary Sussman\n- [The faster you unlearn Object-Orientated Programming the better for you](https://dpc.pw/the-faster-you-unlearn-oop-the-better-for-you-and-your-software)\n- [The Power to Create Chaos](https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02071770/document) by Konrad Hinsen\n- [The problem with programming and how to fix it](https://alarmingdevelopment.org/?p=1173) by Jonathan Edwards\n- [Compression, Complexity and Software System Design](https://theartofmachinery.com/2017/06/25/compression_complexity_and_software.html) by Simon Arneaud\n\n### Future of Programming\n\n- [Future of Software](https://pchiusano.github.io/2013-05-22/future-of-software.html) By Paul Chiusano\n- [Constraint Logic Propagation Conflict Spreadsheets](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voG5-15aDu4) By William Taysom\n- [Future of Programming](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pTEmbeENF4) by Bret Victor\n- [B-thread programming](https://medium.com/@lmatteis/b-threads-programming-in-a-way-that-allows-for-easier-changes-5d95b9fb6928) by Luca Metteis\n\n### What's wrong with notebooks?\n\n- [I don't like notebooks [video]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jiPeIFXb6U) [slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1n2RlMdmv1p25Xy5thJUhkKGvjtV-dkAIsUXP-AL4ffI/preview#slide=id.g362da58057_0_664) by Joel Grus\n- [The First Notebook Wars](https://yihui.name/en/2018/09/notebook-war/) by Yihui Xie\n\n### What's wrong with Infra?\n\n- [I see what you mean](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2Aa4PivG0g) by Peter Alvaro\n- [Serverless: slower and more expensive](http://einaregilsson.com/serverless-15-percent-slower-and-eight-times-more-expensive/)\n\n## History\n\n- [Xerox Star User Interface [video] Part 1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn4vC80Pv6Q) [Part 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODZBL80JPqw)\n\n### Languages\n\n- Datalog\n  - [pyDatalog](https://sites.google.com/site/pydatalog/home) - (Python) Datalog implementation in Python\n  - [Soufflé](https://souffle-lang.github.io/) - (C) Logic programming for Static analysis\n  - [nlDatalog](https://github.com/harc/nl-datalog) - HARC implementation of Datalog\n- [Eve](https://witheve.com) - Rethinking programming\n  - [0.2 Reference](http://docs-next.witheve.com/v0.2/)\n  - [0.3 Reference](http://docs-next.witheve.com/v0.3/)\n  - [Eve Series Part I: How Eve unifies your entire programming stack](https://hackernoon.com/how-eve-unifies-your-entire-programming-stack-900ca80c58a7)\n  - [Eve Series Part II: When Logic Programming Meets CQRS](https://hackernoon.com/when-logic-programming-meets-cqrs-1137ab2a5f86)\n  - [Eve Series Part III: Throwing off our scope chains](https://hackernoon.com/throwing-off-our-scope-chains-7567beb2d0b6)\n  - [Eve Series Part Iv: Smalltalk and protein programming](https://hackernoon.com/smalltalk-and-protein-programming-4da245ac93e2)\n  - [Eve Series Part V: The rock-solid foundation for Eve's big vision](https://hackernoon.com/the-rock-solid-foundation-for-eves-big-vision-225b80b91e11)\n  - [Eve Series Part VI: Why Eve will be perfect for real-time apps](https://hackernoon.com/why-eve-will-be-perfect-for-realtime-apps-92b965b80ad)\n  - [After Eve](http://scattered-thoughts.net/blog/2016/01/17/after-eve/) - Jamie Branson\n  - [Eve Concerns](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10995235#10996541) - \n- [Precept](https://github.com/CoNarrative/precept) - A declarative programming framework\n- [Ceu Lang](http://ceu-lang.org/) - Structured Synchronous Reactive Programming\n- [Dyna](http://www.cs.jhu.edu/%7Enwf/datalog20-paper.pdf) - extending Datalog for modern AI\n- [Imp: sets and funs](https://scattered-thoughts.net/writing/imp-sets-and-funs/) - an emacs-y live self-modifying environment for working with structured data across multiple devices\n  - [denotional semantics](https://scattered-thoughts.net/writing/imp-denotational-semantics/)\n- [Alloy](https://github.com/AlloyTools/org.alloytools.alloy) - Formal methods for verifying code execution\n- [TreeNotation](https://treenotation.org/) - A notation for writing code with two dimensions\n  - [FAQ](http://faq.treenotation.org/)\n  - [TreeBase](https://jtree.treenotation.org/treeBase/)\n- [Bel](http://paulgraham.com/bel.html) - Lisp variant going hard on formalism\n  - [Guide](https://sep.yimg.com/ty/cdn/paulgraham/bellanguage.txt?t=1570888282\u0026)\n  - [Source](https://sep.yimg.com/ty/cdn/paulgraham/bel.bel?t=1570888282\u0026)\n- [LogLisp](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/13d4/0039004d397ade1b6151945eab371b98ec7c.pdf) - Attempt to merge functional (lisp) with relational (prolog)\n- [Userland](https://hisham.hm/userland/) - Spreadsheet-like Terminal\n- Bloom\n  - [Bud](https://github.com/bloom-lang/bud) - Bloom prototype in Ruby\n- [Dex](https://github.com/google-research/dex-lang) - Research language for array processing in the Haskell/ML family        \n\n## Applications\n\n- [MakerPad](https://www.makerpad.co/)\n- [Notion](https://www.notion.so/) - All in one workspace to write, plan, collaborate, and get organized. \n- [MintData](https://mintdata.com)\n- [Hyperfiddle](http://www.hyperfiddle.net/:quick-start)\n  - [CRUD UI definition](https://gist.github.com/dustingetz/654e502340070280ab9744723a8ae250)\n\n### Notebooks\n\n- [Jupyter](https://jupyter.org/)\n- [Observable](https://observablehq.com/)\n- [Streamlit](https://streamlit.io/)\n- [Grid Studio](https://github.com/ricklamers/gridstudio)\n  - [Announcement](https://hackernoon.com/introducing-grid-studio-a-spreadsheet-app-with-python-to-make-data-science-easier-tdup38f7)\n- [Hyperfiddle](http://www.hyperfiddle.net/:quick-start)\n- [Polynote](https://polynote.org/) - Notebook to leverage Scala\n  - [Annoucement](https://medium.com/netflix-techblog/open-sourcing-polynote-an-ide-inspired-polyglot-notebook-7f929d3f447)\n- [Swish](https://swish.swi-prolog.org/) - Notebook for Prolog\n\n### SpreadSheets\n\n- [Excel](#section) - Microsoft's Popular Spreadsheet\n- [Mesh Spreadsheet](http://mesh-spreadsheet.com/)\n\n## Projects\n\n- [Dynamicland](https://dynamicland.org/) - The building is the computer\n- [Hivemind](https://gitlab.com/cmontella/hivemind) - By Corey Montella, taking some of the lessons he learned from Eve \n- [SIEUFERD: A Visual Query System](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6xmqcb8hFQ)\n- Beaker and Dat\n  - [How Dat Works](https://datprotocol.github.io/how-dat-works/)\n- Apparatus\n  - [Apparatus: A Hybrid Graphics Editor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3Xack9ufYk) by Toby Schachman\n- Project Mentat [deprecated]\n  - [Introducing Project Mentat, a flexible embedded knowledge store](https://medium.com/project-tofino/introducing-datomish-a-flexible-embedded-knowledge-store-1d7976bff344)\n  - [Mentat Github](https://github.com/mozilla/mentat)\n  - [HN Discussion](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13568559)\n- [Aquameta](https://github.com/aquametalabs/aquameta) - Entire web stack implemented in Postgres\n- **Need to do Curate** Of the projects circulating around this community I see\n  \\- Kayia/Kaya [@David Broderick](https://futureofcoding.slack.com/team/UJCHWTMH6) [@David](https://futureofcoding.slack.com/team/U8A87T2NQ)\n  \\- Hilltop [@Dan Swirsky](https://futureofcoding.slack.com/team/UEP7RL0HX)\n  \\- Infusion [@Bosmon](https://futureofcoding.slack.com/team/UEH6T3RJB)\n  \\- Maraca [@jon](https://futureofcoding.slack.com/team/UJDQKSSJ0)\n  \\- Mech [@Corey](https://futureofcoding.slack.com/team/UCGR73CAY)\n  That may be similar to Eve and Onex in this regard. Perhaps the authors could \n\n## Technologies\n\n- Timely Dataflow\n  - [Timely Dataflow Tutorial](https://timelydataflow.github.io/timely-dataflow/)\n- Differential Dataflow\n  - [Differential Dataflow Tutorial](https://timelydataflow.github.io/differential-dataflow/)\n  - [Six graph algorithms in differential dataflow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1\u0026v=iW1GNY_S6xc)\n  - [Frank McSherry's Blog](https://github.com/frankmcsherry/blog)\n  - [Differential Datalog](https://github.com/vmware/differential-datalog) by Vmware\n  - [Datafrog](https://github.com/frankmcsherry/datafrog) by Frank McSherry\n\n## People\n\n- [Michael Nielsen](http://michaelnielsen.org)\n- [Andy Matuschak](https://andymatuschak.org/)\n\n## Reading lists\n\n- [Functional, Reactive, and Distributed Systems Bibliography](https://gist.github.com/brendanzab/a6073e73f751a6ca9750f960a92f2afe)\n- [Computer Utopias](http://chrisnovello.com/teaching/risd/computer-utopias/) by Chris Novello at RISD\n- [Readings in Distributed Systems](http://christophermeiklejohn.com/distributed/systems/2013/07/12/readings-in-distributed-systems.html) by Christopher Meiklejohn\n- [Spreadsheet of list of current projects](https://github.com/markdewing/next_steps_in_programming/blob/master/programming_by_transformations.md) \u003c- Triage\n\n## Contribute\n\nContributions welcome! Read the [contribution guidelines](contributing.md) first.\n\n\n## License\n\n[![CC0](https://mirrors.creativecommons.org/presskit/buttons/88x31/svg/cc-zero.svg)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0)\n\nTo the extent possible under law, Wil Chung has waived all copyright and\nrelated or neighboring rights to this work.\n","projects_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/lists/iamwilhelm%2Fawesome-thinking-tools/projects"}