3 ms·

damn, i recently started writing a z machine interpreter in ocaml, and now i both really want to read those posts and really don't want to be influenced by lipp

• lmm 10y ago
  It's always better to know about the design decisions others have taken. If they faced the same choices you did, you can know their view on the tradeoffs (and experiences with their choice) and choose the same way as they did or choose differently, but either way you make your choice with a little more knowledge. If they come up with an idea you didn't even think of, surely you want to know about it, even if you aren't actually going to use it.
  • zem 10y ago
    if i were doing it as something intended for serious use, i'd definitely want to see how lippert did it. but the point of doing this (other than the whole rite-of-passage aspect of writing a z machine :)) is the challenge of designing and implementing it from scratch, and hopefully as cleanly and compactly as possible. if i read lippert's blog and he came up with an idea i didn't think of after i had already solved it some other, potentially worse way, i'd be delighted to see that it could be done better. if i see his solution to some piece that i haven't even implemented yet it would just tempt me to simply adopt his solution.