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At the programming level, we're trading constraints. The original constraint was fitting machine code into RAM. The new constraint is finding quirks of the sta
by cbd1984 11y ago
At the programming level, we're trading constraints.
The original constraint was fitting machine code into RAM. The new constraint is finding quirks of the standard and/or implementations which allow new and interesting effects, possibly on more than one version of a given browser and/or on more than one kind of browser.
The fact the original constraint doesn't exist here is secondary to the fact there are some constraints in play. We can go back and forth on which constraints are more limiting, and there are competitions about who can do the most in the least Javascript (for example), but as far as I'm concerned, the essential spirit remains.
- richardjdare 11y agoAn important thing about the Amiga demo scene was that those constraints were also the edge of what was possible in home computing. So they were approached in a different spirit from say, someone writing a 64k demo on a pc with 8gigs of ram, or running demo effects in the browser. When I watched demos in the Amiga days it was because I wanted to see something new that had never been done on a computer before. Seeing a great demo effect was like discovering a new superpower in your computer; it opened up new possibilities. Being on the limit of what is believed to be possible is, I suppose, formally the same as being within a constraint, but the spirit is completely different. It was about pushing back boundaries. Over the edge of that boundary, there was nothing, just mythical SGI workstations somewhere in the far distance :)