verdagon

20 ms·

181.
by verdagon 4y ago
Avalon is an amazing board game. It's like a version of Mafia that involves a lot more deduction, and players get to stay in the game until the very end. Highly recommend everyone give it a try!
182.
by verdagon 4y ago
It can seem like that on the surface, but a closer look reveals a lot of very interesting new features. Here's a few off the top of my head: * Comptime, which can serve the purpose of generics without a new sub-language [1] * Colorblin
183.
by verdagon 4y ago
I love how Zig is pushing the state of the art forward. I have some expertise in the area, and I think the future is in languages that prioritize simplicity and developer velocity like Zig is doing. > The core team will then be able to b
184.
by verdagon 4y ago
Well put, I've also had it boil down to value differences pretty often. The nice thing about steelmanning is that you can identify those value differences more quickly. One time I was in an argument that was looking to get pretty heate
185.
by verdagon 4y ago
If you ask your opponent, "Just so I understand, are you saying ___?", they'll usually help you understand what they're claiming. People generally like to be heard and understood, even if they violently disagree with you
186.
by verdagon 4y ago
Definitely a masterpiece! I love this series. It's a wonderful blend of Ender's Game, cognitive science, and wizardly tomfoolery. Readers loved it so much that an entire cast of volunteers banded together as voice actors to make a
187.
by verdagon 4y ago
Steelmanning is actually pretty effective against hostile opponents. Once you both agree to what your opponent is claiming, you can identify and ask about all the assumptions that lead up to that claim, and from there, you can discuss and d
188.
by verdagon 4y ago
A good read, thanks for the link. I think I'd disagree with his take on steelmanning though. He seems to think that in steelmanning, you need to assume the same assumptions as your opponent, thus precluding alternate possibilities. But
189.
by verdagon 4y ago
I'm also working in the languages space, I would love to hear your feedback for them and ideas in this realm in general, especially since they don't seem to be that active anymore. My email is my username @gmail.com, feel free to
190.
by verdagon 4y ago
This technique really changed the way I engage with others' ideas [0], the way I approach language design [1], and even my relationships. It's so easy for us humans to get caught in a "me vs. you" mentality, but steel-ma
191.
by verdagon 4y ago
Wow, I've never heard of most of these languages, and I consider myself a language expert! How did you learn of these?
192.
by verdagon 4y ago
It's pretty bold to say that their programming language project is a colossal waste of time. I recommend steel-manning [0] and reading their post with a more open and curious mindset. They could have phrased their article better, sure.
193.
by verdagon 4y ago
I think a more charitable interpretation would be that they're highlighting how much work has gone into that area (web server frameworks come to mind), compared to how little work they've seen on cleaner techniques and language as
194.
by verdagon 4y ago
I've seen people find Rust difficult for three reasons: * &mut is an "infectious leaky abstraction". It places restrictions on the caller, specifically that nobody can have a reference to that data. This disqualifies many
195.
by verdagon 4y ago
Very cool! I assume that anything captured will still need to have Sync/Send?
196.
What is Systems Programming, Really? (2018)(willcrichton.net)
1 points by verdagon 4y ago|0 comments
197.
Which Programming Languages Use the Least Electricity?(thenewstack.io)
1 points by verdagon 4y ago|1 comments
198.
by verdagon 4y ago
In my experience, people believe that programming languages are a solved space, and we should stick with what we have. It's an unfortunate view. Languages are actually very polarized today. I think there's a lot of room for a main
199.
by verdagon 4y ago
> The state of the application can be partitioned in separate components (called automata) that do not share any mutable state and can be safely updated concurrently. This is the right direction! Pure computations on (somewhat) centraliz
200.
by verdagon 4y ago
That sounds like the "generation" tag in Vale's generational references [0] or like how memory tagging works on ARM CPUs [1]. I love the approach, it's a way to get a lot more memory safety while not giving up a program&
201.
by verdagon 4y ago
The linear address space is the root reason why any language with FFI support will be inherently unsafe, unfortunately. Any errant pointer from C can accidentally (or intentionally) corrupt objects in the safe language. It's a difficul
202.
Next-Gen Language Features: User Code on the GPU(verdagon.dev)
2 points by verdagon 4y ago|0 comments
203.
by verdagon 4y ago
Similar to Rust, each thread would have separate memory. Data would be lent or passed to other threads via channels, mutexes, or structured concurrency.
204.
by verdagon 4y ago
Thanks!
205.
by verdagon 4y ago
Rust has some overhead for safety (bounds checking) and Vale will have some too (generation checking) but it's hard to say how much. If we get within even 2% of Rust, we'll call it a win for the simplicity we can bring to the prog
206.
by verdagon 4y ago
This is actually what we're doing in Vale. [0] Rust is a stellar language, and there's a lot we as a field can learn from it. Its borrow checker is pretty amazing for optimization, but it can be a detriment for a program's ov
207.
by verdagon 4y ago
> Circumventing the borrow checker Programs often require inherent state with data that refers to other data. In these cases, one must circumvent the borrow checker, whether it be with indices, IDs, Rc, or whatever. The borrow checker
208.
by verdagon 4y ago
You should never use Vec in that situation, but we see it all the time. People love indexing into Vecs and reusing elements. One of my favorite alternatives is generational_arena [0] which also happens to be the library that inspired Vale
209.
by verdagon 4y ago
In Java, you can hold onto a reference to the UserAccount directly, for as long as you want. The borrow checker, however, forces you to hold onto an index instead.
210.
by verdagon 4y ago
Thank you! I just fixed the link, thanks for letting me know! And if any of my articles are ever confusing, feel welcome to swing by the discord or file an issue =) I'm pretty excited about all the memory safety advances languages have

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