5 ms·

Simulating Softbody Dynamics in Vlang

45 points by Tozen 4y ago

MobiusHorizons 4y ago
The code snippets in the article bizarrely have text that is of several different font sizes. Is this some ide feature? Or is this just poorly edited together from screenshots at different sizes?
- vosper 4y ago
  That's not how it looks for me on Chrome - the sizing is consistent. However the entire site is showing as a very rough-looking font, like the anti-aliasing is completely messed up. I assume we're both seeing font glitches of some kind.
  - forgotpwd16 4y ago
    Heh, opened in Chrome and the glitch I've is the line beneath the sections is shown above and some part below. On the other hand site looks perfect on Firefox.
  - agency 4y ago
    Same (looks like this: https://imgur.com/a/MVcbb23 https://imgur.com/a/MVcbb23). It looks like they have -webkit-font-smoothing: none; applied globally in their stylesheet.
- Tozen 4y ago
  I'm not sure what's going on with this comment. The code snippets shown on the blog is editable, and is about the same size. If the size of the font is a bit different, it should not matter, because that isn't the point of what is being discussed. Unless you are referring to the animations, but then the point is to show the geometric shapes. Perhaps you want to go to the GitHub page (https://github.com/l1mey112/v-2Dsoftbodies https://github.com/l1mey112/v-2Dsoftbodies). Font sizes would all be uniform. But the blog has the animations to first see how it works.
  - codetrotter 4y ago
    Some of the code snippets have lines that vary in font size by a very noticeable amount in Safari on iPhone. https://imgur.io/o44Fkjt https://imgur.io/o44Fkjt https://imgur.io/OypYkcQ https://imgur.io/OypYkcQ https://imgur.io/yeK9IwK https://imgur.io/yeK9IwK It’s definitely legitimate to ask what’s up with that
    - Tozen 4y ago
      As mentioned, wasn't sure what was the issue, and had responded earlier. Also provided the GitHub link, to be helpful. It appears that some people do indeed have an issue, depending on their browser.
    - MobiusHorizons 4y ago
      Thanks for the screenshots. This is what I was referring to. Glad to hear this is a browser issue.
- jpe90 4y ago
  are you using an ios device by any chance? author probably needs this: https://github.com/adityatelange/hugo-PaperMod/issues/828#issuecomment-1171994855 https://github.com/adityatelange/hugo-PaperMod/issues/828#is... i got bit by this on my blog as well
  - MobiusHorizons 4y ago
    I am that must be it. It looked very odd.
forgotpwd16 4y ago
V had a rough start but seems to be coming up nicely. The title here is old title of post but believe is more appropriate since article doesn't really cover how the terminal rendering (which imo will be even more interesting) happens but the numerical integration.
- galangalalgol 4y ago
  I haven't looked in a while, the consensus seemed to be it was either a scam or at least a lot of over promise las time I looked. Which was disappointing because I really liked the description! Edit: Took another look and I like it. Trying to decide if I want to mess with vlang or austral next.
  - Tozen 4y ago
    > ...the consensus seemed to be it was either a scam... The V language was always real, and never a scam or vaporware. This clearly false view and misconception, partly originates from very early on (2019), and whether the language would actually be released on GitHub. When the source code release was delayed (back in 2019), detractors and competitors pounced on this, and attempted to give the impression that the language didn't exist. But then, it was finally released on GitHub, and proven to be real. Unfortunately, the very tribal drama had already been started, and detractors and competitors kept it going. Obviously (since 2019 and easily confirmed on GitHub) V has near weekly releases, hundreds of contributors, and continually improves. That's about as real as it gets. Hopefully we can kind of put an end to the old unnecessary drama and tribalism. It's now 2023. There is enough space in the world for different programming languages to coexist. No need to bash other languages or continually fuel more drama, we can enjoy whatever language, and keep it moving. Peace.
    - amedvednikov 4y ago
      The source code release wasn't actually delayed. It was promised by June 2019, and it was released by June. I did an early release of the Patreon-only compiler without sources, and that was a mistake.
tsegratis 4y ago
Looks great mate. Love the animations and exploration you've done I suppose more complex shapes would benefit from rigid body parts aswell
dom96 4y ago
For those that are using and promoting Vlang, what is the thing that drew you to the language and what has kept you there?
- frankfrank13 4y ago
  i got into it just because its novel, but I've kept using it because I find that the simplicity + performance + safety makes it very useful for prototyping. Last year I challenged myself to do Advent of Code with V, because I knew I couldn't google the answers + there are very few packages for it (I limited myself to the standard library). I felt like I was back in CS courses, just banging my head against a wall, and it was super fun. I personally can't say why someone would use it over Go or Rust, but I can say its a joy to write.
- codetrotter 4y ago
  I don’t use it but I always am interested to read about it because people used to say that the V in Vlang was for Vaporware, but I want to see them keep working on their language and succeeding in making the language they want.
- adenozine 4y ago
  I am learning it now, it’s pretty neat. I think the simplicity is a big appeal for me. I’ve tried Nim but it just seemed inconsistent, the case insensitivity is insane, and I think there’s a lot of minor but still odd syntax decisions that have been made. I’d rather just use python, which is nice, than have to finagle my Nim code just for a little speed boost. Sum types and TCO with -prod is a really nice feature as well. Not supporting TCO was a huge bummer when I tried Nim, and many other languages tbh. I already use Go sometimes, so picking up vlang was basically free, and I haven’t had time to do any big substantial projects with it, but I wrote a little irc bot with it and had a good afternoon hacking on it.
- j_not_j 4y ago
  Nim is very flexible, and too flexible after you think about it. Compare C with excessive use of macros. That's an antipattern in C and presumably a feature of Nim. C++ is just too big and slow to compile. Rust has a reputation of complication and steep learning curve. Go has the same issues as Node.js -- uncontrolled import of hundreds of weird and unknown and unknowable libraries. V is opinionated, has a single definition of correct formatting, compiles to fast-enough C, has numerous handy features, is sensitive to multiple platforms and architectures, and has lots of usefully comparable code to learn from and borrow from. V is not scientific enough, but that depends on the libraries you choose not the language itself (the scientific lib vsl is quite different from the tensor lib). There are a lot of wanna be scientific languages (Chapel is a particularly good example) but the usual problem is that no-one adopts them because almost no-one else adopts them. Cray Fortran introduced Co-Array Fortran which got some traction but it is almost unheard of both inside and outside the Fortran community. (CAF abstracted from OpenMPI so you could write code that ran on hundreds of CPUs without really caring how or where the code ran.) Maybe chatgpt or other LLMs will enable effective cross-language translation making it easier to move between interesting language communities. Modulo translation errors of course.

45 points by Tozen 4y ago

The code snippets in the article bizarrely have text that is of several different font sizes. Is this some ide feature? Or is this just poorly edited together from screenshots at different sizes?

vosper 4y ago
That's not how it looks for me on Chrome - the sizing is consistent. However the entire site is showing as a very rough-looking font, like the anti-aliasing is completely messed up. I assume we're both seeing font glitches of some kind.
- forgotpwd16 4y ago
  Heh, opened in Chrome and the glitch I've is the line beneath the sections is shown above and some part below. On the other hand site looks perfect on Firefox.
- agency 4y ago
  Same (looks like this: https://imgur.com/a/MVcbb23 https://imgur.com/a/MVcbb23). It looks like they have -webkit-font-smoothing: none; applied globally in their stylesheet.
Tozen 4y ago
I'm not sure what's going on with this comment. The code snippets shown on the blog is editable, and is about the same size. If the size of the font is a bit different, it should not matter, because that isn't the point of what is being discussed. Unless you are referring to the animations, but then the point is to show the geometric shapes. Perhaps you want to go to the GitHub page (https://github.com/l1mey112/v-2Dsoftbodies https://github.com/l1mey112/v-2Dsoftbodies). Font sizes would all be uniform. But the blog has the animations to first see how it works.
- codetrotter 4y ago
  Some of the code snippets have lines that vary in font size by a very noticeable amount in Safari on iPhone. https://imgur.io/o44Fkjt https://imgur.io/o44Fkjt https://imgur.io/OypYkcQ https://imgur.io/OypYkcQ https://imgur.io/yeK9IwK https://imgur.io/yeK9IwK It’s definitely legitimate to ask what’s up with that
  - Tozen 4y ago
    As mentioned, wasn't sure what was the issue, and had responded earlier. Also provided the GitHub link, to be helpful. It appears that some people do indeed have an issue, depending on their browser.
  - MobiusHorizons 4y ago
    Thanks for the screenshots. This is what I was referring to. Glad to hear this is a browser issue.
jpe90 4y ago
are you using an ios device by any chance? author probably needs this: https://github.com/adityatelange/hugo-PaperMod/issues/828#issuecomment-1171994855 https://github.com/adityatelange/hugo-PaperMod/issues/828#is... i got bit by this on my blog as well
- MobiusHorizons 4y ago
  I am that must be it. It looked very odd.

forgotpwd16 4y ago

V had a rough start but seems to be coming up nicely. The title here is old title of post but believe is more appropriate since article doesn't really cover how the terminal rendering (which imo will be even more interesting) happens but the numerical integration.

galangalalgol 4y ago
I haven't looked in a while, the consensus seemed to be it was either a scam or at least a lot of over promise las time I looked. Which was disappointing because I really liked the description! Edit: Took another look and I like it. Trying to decide if I want to mess with vlang or austral next.
- Tozen 4y ago
  > ...the consensus seemed to be it was either a scam... The V language was always real, and never a scam or vaporware. This clearly false view and misconception, partly originates from very early on (2019), and whether the language would actually be released on GitHub. When the source code release was delayed (back in 2019), detractors and competitors pounced on this, and attempted to give the impression that the language didn't exist. But then, it was finally released on GitHub, and proven to be real. Unfortunately, the very tribal drama had already been started, and detractors and competitors kept it going. Obviously (since 2019 and easily confirmed on GitHub) V has near weekly releases, hundreds of contributors, and continually improves. That's about as real as it gets. Hopefully we can kind of put an end to the old unnecessary drama and tribalism. It's now 2023. There is enough space in the world for different programming languages to coexist. No need to bash other languages or continually fuel more drama, we can enjoy whatever language, and keep it moving. Peace.
  - amedvednikov 4y ago
    The source code release wasn't actually delayed. It was promised by June 2019, and it was released by June. I did an early release of the Patreon-only compiler without sources, and that was a mistake.

tsegratis 4y ago

Looks great mate. Love the animations and exploration you've done I suppose more complex shapes would benefit from rigid body parts aswell

dom96 4y ago

For those that are using and promoting Vlang, what is the thing that drew you to the language and what has kept you there?

frankfrank13 4y ago
i got into it just because its novel, but I've kept using it because I find that the simplicity + performance + safety makes it very useful for prototyping. Last year I challenged myself to do Advent of Code with V, because I knew I couldn't google the answers + there are very few packages for it (I limited myself to the standard library). I felt like I was back in CS courses, just banging my head against a wall, and it was super fun. I personally can't say why someone would use it over Go or Rust, but I can say its a joy to write.
codetrotter 4y ago
I don’t use it but I always am interested to read about it because people used to say that the V in Vlang was for Vaporware, but I want to see them keep working on their language and succeeding in making the language they want.
adenozine 4y ago
I am learning it now, it’s pretty neat. I think the simplicity is a big appeal for me. I’ve tried Nim but it just seemed inconsistent, the case insensitivity is insane, and I think there’s a lot of minor but still odd syntax decisions that have been made. I’d rather just use python, which is nice, than have to finagle my Nim code just for a little speed boost. Sum types and TCO with -prod is a really nice feature as well. Not supporting TCO was a huge bummer when I tried Nim, and many other languages tbh. I already use Go sometimes, so picking up vlang was basically free, and I haven’t had time to do any big substantial projects with it, but I wrote a little irc bot with it and had a good afternoon hacking on it.
j_not_j 4y ago
Nim is very flexible, and too flexible after you think about it. Compare C with excessive use of macros. That's an antipattern in C and presumably a feature of Nim. C++ is just too big and slow to compile. Rust has a reputation of complication and steep learning curve. Go has the same issues as Node.js -- uncontrolled import of hundreds of weird and unknown and unknowable libraries. V is opinionated, has a single definition of correct formatting, compiles to fast-enough C, has numerous handy features, is sensitive to multiple platforms and architectures, and has lots of usefully comparable code to learn from and borrow from. V is not scientific enough, but that depends on the libraries you choose not the language itself (the scientific lib vsl is quite different from the tensor lib). There are a lot of wanna be scientific languages (Chapel is a particularly good example) but the usual problem is that no-one adopts them because almost no-one else adopts them. Cray Fortran introduced Co-Array Fortran which got some traction but it is almost unheard of both inside and outside the Fortran community. (CAF abstracted from OpenMPI so you could write code that ran on hundreds of CPUs without really caring how or where the code ran.) Maybe chatgpt or other LLMs will enable effective cross-language translation making it easier to move between interesting language communities. Modulo translation errors of course.