Bret Victor's vision was a major inspiration for my PhD research and thesis, mainly "Inventing on Principle" and "Ladder of Abstractions". The final concept and implementation that emerged is a sort-of "Interactive What-If-Machine" for 3D simulations -- however I'm afraid it's just another small step into the hopefully right direction:

"Interactive Analysis and Optimization of Digital Twins": https://doi.org/10.18154/RWTH-2022-07066

Direct link to PDF: https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/record/849852/files/8498... (94 MB) Unfortunately it's in German, but there are many many illustrations and pictures, as well as some english quotes.

I am still amazed how some of Victor's very basic principles (e.e. "Show the data, show comparisons!", immediate feedback loops, ...) are always so essential/fruitful in generating amazing solutions to certain problems...

Aside from my work, I think Processing's "Tweak Mode" is another very good "real-life" example you might want to check out: See e.g. http://galsasson.com/tweakmode/