# Inventing on Principle by Bret Victor

5 Hacker News commenters recommended Inventing on Principle by Bret Victor and 0 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend this talk as a mind-blowing demo of non-chat interfaces for building software and as a formative way to think about programming. No recurring complaints appear in the quotes.

## Why people recommend it

- Non-chat interface for building products (1 comments): "A great example of how to build a non-chat interface to product building (predating the AI boom)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46935767))
- Mind-blowing demo (1 comments): "One of the most mind blowing demos to me was Bret Victor's inventing on principle" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46185450))
- Formative for thinking about software (1 comments): "It was formative for how I think about software." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46507877))
- Required viewing for everyone (1 comments): ""Inventing on Principle" by Bret Victor is required viewing for anyone that hasn't seen it yet." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48665452))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Simple Made Easy by Rich Hickey](https://hackerapproved.com/p/simple-made-easy.md): 22 recommend
- [Porting Linux to Apple Silicon by Asahi Linux](https://hackerapproved.com/p/asahi-linux-porting-linux-to-apple-silicon.md): 8 recommend
- [Hammock Driven Development by Rich Hickey](https://hackerapproved.com/p/hammock-driven-development-talk.md): 7 recommend
- [The Root of the Root of All Evil by Casey Muratori](https://hackerapproved.com/p/root-of-the-root-of-all-evil.md): 7 recommend
- [Children of the Magenta Line](https://hackerapproved.com/p/children-of-the-magenta-line.md): 6 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Inventing on Principle by Bret Victor", https://hackerapproved.com/p/inventing-on-principle/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).