Erik Naggum died slightly more than a year ago.
I have never met the man in the flesh, and yet he is the one person who had most often and most radically re-shaped my opinions at their core, solely through the printed word – not only on the subject of computer programing, but [...]
All of my Nock/Urbit explorations will now live here.
Here is a very simple Common Lisp compiler [1] of Nock, C. Yarvin’s elegant systems language.
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; *************************** define reader macros ***************************
(eval-when (:load-toplevel :execute)
(defmacro char-macro (ch &body body)
`(set-macro-character ,ch #’(lambda (stream char)
(declare (ignore char)) ,@body)))
; define syntax of N-expression
(char-macro #\[
(reduce [...]
The modern high-level-language programmer thinks (if he is of the thinking kind) of low-level system architecture as a stubborn enemy, or, at best, a harsh and indifferent force of nature. Anyone who suggests that everyday desktop apps ought to be written directly in a CPU’s native instruction set is viewed as much the same [...]
The author of LoseTheOS comments on the lost treasure of simplicity in computing:
“When I was a kid, you could put a line on the screen in two lines of BASIC code. I had a book which literally told what everything… in my computer did. … Average people typed-in programs from magazines and, typically, knew enough [...]
It appears that orthogonal persistence, or the elimination of the need for users and programmers to explicitly juggle data between RAM and disk for it to survive plug-pulling, is easy.
We are all running operating systems written with the limitations of 1960s hardware in mind. Not even talking about the future – even the present remains [...]
Anyone who has read CS papers from ~1960-1980 and compared the original-idea-density to those of today might think forbidden thoughts.
While meandering through stories of unorthodox computational architectures, I was overcome with a sharp feeling of “where are they now?” Who stole the original thinkers of that era, and planted type-theoretical bureaucrats in their place?
Fortunately, the [...]
Arc has made quite an impression on me. Implementing it on the bare metal feels like a worthy and tempting goal.
On the other hand, I am saddened by the invincibility of the “programs as plain ASCII streams” dogma even among supposed iconoclasts.
