3 ms·

Is the dev a high school student? From their blog: https://fw.neocities.org/blog/5.html https://fw.neocities.org/blog/5.html If so, this is crazy impressive.

tndl 7y ago
Apparently they've also written a language, a static site generator in that language, a brainf*ck interpreter, and a markdown parser, among other things. Super impressive stuff. https://github.com/ffwff?tab=repositories https://github.com/ffwff?tab=repositories
- haunter 7y ago
  >Neural networks that learn to generate anime faces. This is my favorite
- marton78 7y ago
  The next Fabrice Bellard?
ssivark 7y ago
If so, it is definitely mind-bending. Makes me wonder what people mean about not being over-ambitious, "avoiding NIH", "worse is better", "minimizing technical risk", etc. Somehow one is made to feel (by no particular person, but by the composite emergent vibe) that there are a hundred and one reasons to be more conservative. I wonder how many people have the audacity to re-imagine their software ground-up, and the technical chops to actually implement it. The verve is refreshing. Kudos to the author, and also thanks.
- kick 7y ago
  The Soul of a New Machine has an amazing passage on a software developer from Data General being too inexperienced to realize that what he was doing couldn't be done, and finishing it in record time. It's safe to say that people who aren't aware of or ignore limits put out better work on average than people who don't.
  - riffraff 7y ago
    Not sure if it's the same story but there is also the Ivan Sutherland one reported by Alan Kay. > When asked, “How could you possibly have done the first interactive graphics program, the first non-procedural programming language, the first object oriented software system, all in one year?” Ivan replied: “Well, I didn’t know it was hard.”
  - extempore 7y ago
    That seems decidedly unsafe to say, but even if you’re right, the second paragraph doesn’t follow from the first. “Everyone generalizes from one example! At least, I do.”
    - kick 7y ago
      It's been shown repeatedly. Arthur Whitney is another example. In fact, basically every major technological innovation of the past two centuries has been because of people doing this. The first was just to share an example. The second paragraph is common knowledge.
      - Symmetry 7y ago
        We do depend in a profound way on people trying the impossible for our civilization to progress. But at the same time most attempts to do the impossible do end in failure and I think it would be mistake to say that people trying do the impossible do better on average than those who don't. Rather, we should encourage play, tilting at windmills, etc knowing full well that we're accepting the danger of failure now but making an investment in the future.
  - prox 7y ago
    Indeed, reminds me of : One day In 1939, George Bernard Dantzig, a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, arrived late for a graduate-level statistics class and found two problems written on the board. Not knowing they were examples of “unsolved” statistics problems, he mistook them for part of a homework assignment, jotted them down, and solved them. (The equations Dantzig tackled are more accurately described not as unsolvable problems, but rather as unproven statistical theorems for which he worked out proofs.) Six weeks later, Dantzig’s statistic professor notified him that he had prepared one of his two “homework” proofs for publication, and Dantzig was given co-author credit on another paper several years later when another mathematician independently worked out the same solution to the second problem.
faissaloo 7y ago
It's the new normal

tndl 7y ago

Apparently they've also written a language, a static site generator in that language, a brainf*ck interpreter, and a markdown parser, among other things. Super impressive stuff. https://github.com/ffwff?tab=repositories https://github.com/ffwff?tab=repositories

haunter 7y ago
>Neural networks that learn to generate anime faces. This is my favorite
marton78 7y ago
The next Fabrice Bellard?

ssivark 7y ago

If so, it is definitely mind-bending. Makes me wonder what people mean about not being over-ambitious, "avoiding NIH", "worse is better", "minimizing technical risk", etc. Somehow one is made to feel (by no particular person, but by the composite emergent vibe) that there are a hundred and one reasons to be more conservative. I wonder how many people have the audacity to re-imagine their software ground-up, and the technical chops to actually implement it. The verve is refreshing. Kudos to the author, and also thanks.

kick 7y ago
The Soul of a New Machine has an amazing passage on a software developer from Data General being too inexperienced to realize that what he was doing couldn't be done, and finishing it in record time. It's safe to say that people who aren't aware of or ignore limits put out better work on average than people who don't.
- riffraff 7y ago
  Not sure if it's the same story but there is also the Ivan Sutherland one reported by Alan Kay. > When asked, “How could you possibly have done the first interactive graphics program, the first non-procedural programming language, the first object oriented software system, all in one year?” Ivan replied: “Well, I didn’t know it was hard.”
- extempore 7y ago
  That seems decidedly unsafe to say, but even if you’re right, the second paragraph doesn’t follow from the first. “Everyone generalizes from one example! At least, I do.”
  - kick 7y ago
    It's been shown repeatedly. Arthur Whitney is another example. In fact, basically every major technological innovation of the past two centuries has been because of people doing this. The first was just to share an example. The second paragraph is common knowledge.
    - Symmetry 7y ago
      We do depend in a profound way on people trying the impossible for our civilization to progress. But at the same time most attempts to do the impossible do end in failure and I think it would be mistake to say that people trying do the impossible do better on average than those who don't. Rather, we should encourage play, tilting at windmills, etc knowing full well that we're accepting the danger of failure now but making an investment in the future.
- prox 7y ago
  Indeed, reminds me of : One day In 1939, George Bernard Dantzig, a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, arrived late for a graduate-level statistics class and found two problems written on the board. Not knowing they were examples of “unsolved” statistics problems, he mistook them for part of a homework assignment, jotted them down, and solved them. (The equations Dantzig tackled are more accurately described not as unsolvable problems, but rather as unproven statistical theorems for which he worked out proofs.) Six weeks later, Dantzig’s statistic professor notified him that he had prepared one of his two “homework” proofs for publication, and Dantzig was given co-author credit on another paper several years later when another mathematician independently worked out the same solution to the second problem.

faissaloo 7y ago

It's the new normal