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PPIC is an informal meetup to muse on programming interfaces and on, roughly, how to fill the gap between spreadsheets and general-purpose textual programming. The format varies week to week: one week we might discuss a paper or talk, the next someone might present work in progress for feedback, and the next we might argue about some spicy question like, "Do end-users even want to automate their tasks?". Generally, neither presenters or attendees do much preparation: if there's a new idea, we figure it out together and discussion naturally blossoms. Visitors welcome, even if you're not in the Pacific time zone!
To get announcements and the Zoom link, join the Google group.
To suggest a topic, open a Github issue. To edit this page, click here.
For summer 2026, PPIC meets on Monday at 2pm in DIB 361 at UCSD (DIB 311 before July 13) and on Zoom.
| Date | Topic | Leader |
|---|---|---|
| TBD | One Way to Select Many Järvi1 and Parent 2016 | Dev |
| Aug 10 | No PPIC | |
| July 27 | Table Types Rotella 2024 BS Thesis Hrubý 2024 BS Thesis Toohey et al 2026 | Brian |
| July 20 | Alternate Reality Kit Smith 1987 Video | Dev |
| July 13 | How do people integrate multiple tools into workflows? Researcher as Bricoleur (Antonijevic 2018) Our discussion on tools, unsystematic real-world use, and user studies | Brian |
| July 6 | Dan Olsen’s SIGCHI Lifetime Achievement in Research Award Talk CHI 2012 Video | Brian |
| June 29 | Amulet Video CHI 2017 SIGCHI Lifetime Research Award: Brad A. Myers | Matt |
| June 15 | OnShape CAD Tutorial | Matt |
For spring 2026, PPIC met on Monday at 2pm in DIB 311 at UCSD and on Zoom.
| June 1 | Critical Reflections on Visualization Authoring Systems Satyanarayan 2019 Our discussion on high-level vs. low-level vis exploration | Brian |
| May 18 | Honeybee Programming by Navigation Video Etc | Justin |
| May 11 | Data-Driven Spatial Constraints for Designing Interactive UI Mockups | Bryan |
| May 4 | Convoy prototype and general thoughts on drag and drop UX Convoy VideOrigami Enso's organized nodes-and-wires | Avery |
| Apr 27 | Why was Flash so successful? Create a Basic RPG Game in Flash AS3 Intro to ActionScript 3.0 Rehearsal World (Finzer and Gould 1993) | Matt |
For winter 2026, PPIC met on Tuesdays at 3:30pm.
| Date | Topic | Leader |
|---|---|---|
| Apr 14 | No PPIC. CHI. | |
| Apr 7 | No PPIC. UIST Video and CHI Crunch. | |
| Mar 31 | No PPIC. UIST Deadline. | |
| Mar 24 | No PPIC. UIST Crunch. | |
| Mar 17 | UIST Prototype | Zhicheng |
| Mar 10 | Spreadsheet Corpus Study Results? | Jacob |
| Mar 3 | "I Wrote This But I Didn't" AI Code Understanding WIP | Bimal |
| Feb 24 | Belidor | Matt |
| Feb 17 | Webstrates and MyWebstrates and Infusion Webstrates (Klokmose 2015) MyWebstrates (Klokmose 2024) Infusion (Basman 2025) | Zhicheng |
| Feb 10 | DynaVis and BISCUIT DynaVis (Vaithilingam 2024) BISCUIT (Cheng 2024) | Brian |
| Feb 3 | Notations, etc. | Dev |
| Jan 27 | Interaction Substrates: Combining Power and Simplicity in Interactive Systems Paper (Mackay and Beaudouin-Lafon 2025) Video Our musings on substrate definitions and basal media | Brian |
For fall 2025, PPIC met on Thursdays at 4pm.
| Date | Topic | Leader |
|---|---|---|
| Dec 18 | MVU with Elm, Tutorial Workshop (maybe build an audio timeline?) | Brian |
| Dec 11 | WIP Update | Josh & Dev |
| Nov 20 | WIP Update: Spreadsheets and/or Programming by Sculpting for Spreadsheets | Jacob |
| Nov 13 | SQUIRE: Interactive UI Authoring via Slot QUery Intermediate REpresentations Paper (Leung 2025) 30s Preview vs Sculpin | Saketh |
| Nov 6 | Sculpin: Direct-Manipulation Transformation of JSON Paper (Josh & Dev UIST 2025) Video | Dev & Josh |
| Oct 30 | Debugger Canvas Paper (DeLine 2012) Video Quickpose Kaleido Demo | Brian |
For late summer 2025, PPIC met on Monday at 1pm.
| Date | Topic | Leader |
|---|---|---|
| Aug 25 | Debugging Lit vs Fancy Programming Interfaces, Part 4 Reacher | Brian |
| Aug 18 | Debugging Lit vs Fancy Programming Interfaces, Part 3 Reacher Formative Study Reacher | Brian |
| Aug 4 | Debugging Lit vs Fancy Programming Interfaces, Part 2 Kubelka et al 2019 Whyline Formative Study Whyline for Alice Whyline for Java | Brian |
| July 28 | Debugging Lit vs Fancy Programming Interfaces Sillito et al 2008 | Brian |
For spring and early summer 2025, PPIC met on Tuesday at 2pm.
| Date | Topic | Leader |
|---|---|---|
| June 17 | Cognitive Dimensions of Notation, #12-13 Paper (Green and Petre 1996) | Brian |
| June 3 | Cognitive Dimensions of Notation, #10-11 Paper (Green and Petre 1996) | Brian |
| May 27 | VL/HCC Submission Recap | Anyone who submitted to VL/HCC |
| May 20 | Cognitive Dimensions of Notation, #7-9 Paper (Green and Petre 1996) | Brian |
| May 6 | Cognitive Dimensions of Notation, #5-6 Paper (Green and Petre 1996) The Expression Problem | Brian |
| Apr 29 | Cognitive Dimensions of Notation, #3-4 Paper (Green and Petre 1996) | Brian |
| Apr 22 | Cognitive Dimensions of Notation, #1-2 Paper (Green and Petre 1996) Musings on “closeness of mapping” | Brian |
| Apr 15 | GUIs for JSON DSLs Prong (McNutt 2023) Ivy (McNutt 2021) | Brian |
For winter 2025, PPIC met on Fridays at 1pm.
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