Knitting is coding. It starts with a stream of input. You take the input, perform an operation on it according to a set of instructions, and store the output. You then perform an operation to combine the raw input and stored information, and store that new information, and so on.
My pattern or program or recipe was:
CO 10*n + 1
r1: * k1, (yo ssk) rep, k1, (k2tog yo) rep * rep to end, k1
r2: p
r3: * k2, yo ssk yo, s1 k2tog psso, yo k2tog yo, k1 * rep to end, k1
r4: p
rep as desired
BO
Early on, I otherwise translated this as Cast On, make a holey mess, Bail Out. But I got the hang of it: what it looked like after row 2 and row 4, and how to recover from a mistake. So the ball of SMILE yarn, given to me by a friend, gradually lengthened into a short scarf, to give back to my friend.
Key:
- CO – cast on
- BO – bind off
- r1 – row 1, etc
- n – any integer ≥ 1, depending on how wide you want the piece
- rep – repeat, either what is in the brackets, or what is between the *
- k1 – knit one stitch
- p – purl, along the whole row in this case
- yo – yarn over
- ssk – slip slip knit, ie slip two stitches from the left needle onto the right, then knit into the front of them with the left needle
- s1 – slip one stitch
- k2tog – knit two together
- psso – pass slipped stitch over
Once upon a time I read an in depth discussion of knitting as programming, but cannot now find it again. Instead, this proposal for a knitting-based language came up in a search.