Peeking Behind the Curtain

2024-09-13

My biggest interest is in thinking about programming instead of coding.

Make reprogrammable electronic machines do something using whatever means possible.

ATM, I'm using draw.io[1] to draw programs, then t2t to compile draw.io's XML (graphML[2]) to code (say Python), then run.

Articles on my desktop, awaiting attention (coded and running and in github, but need more expansive docs and/or people with more energy):

• Experiments with t2t

  • includes using recursive syntax instead of flat BNF-like syntax

• Experiments With Verbatim

  • transpile code in pipelines, including ways to signal "this has been transpiled already, don't touch it" (spoiler: Unicode brackets)

• Experiments with Peephole Optimizers

  • forget efficiency, just make it work right, then production engineer it

• Experiments with DI

  • Design Intent - make Software Architecture more readable, needing less reverse-engineering of code

• Experiments With a Python Indenter

  • Python is a nasty target language due to indentation syntax, but divide-and-conquer makes it a lot easier to emit Python

  • Spills over into thinking about markdown as a programming language

• Experiments With Simple DPLs

  • DPL means Diagrammatic Programming Language

  • making a sensible DPL requires extreme isolation of software units (I call this 0D)

• Experiments With Syntax Formatting

  • Unicode and HTML as part of syntax (we can easily parse it these days (OhmJS, t2t), so why not?)

• Experiments With Whitespace in Identifiers

  • ASCII affected 1950s design choices, Unicode allows new choices

• Papers I Love - Overview of Orthogonal Code Generation[3]

• Papers I Love - Overview of The Design and Application of a Retargetable Peephole Optimizer[4]

• Prolog in JS transpiled from Nils Holm's Scheme version

• Meta-syntax for 0D

• Meta-syntax for Prolog (goal: Prolog in Python, in Odin, in WASM, etc, etc)

• Fooling around with Ceptre

  • To see what relationships is has with describing asynchronous concurrency

(FYI - I already did a PWL - Papers We Love - on Harel’s StateCharts paper[5])

See Also

References: https://guitarvydas.github.io/2024/01/06/References.html

Blog: https://guitarvydas.github.io/

Videos: https://www.youtube.com/@programmingsimplicity2980

Discord: https://discord.gg/Jjx62ypR

Leanpub: [WIP] https://leanpub.com/u/paul-tarvydas

Gumroad: https://tarvydas.gumroad.com

Twitter: @paul_tarvydas

Bibliography

[1] Draw.io from https://app.diagrams.net

[2] GraphML from http://graphml.graphdrawing.org

[3] J. R. Cordy. An Orthogonal Model for Code Generation.

[4] Jack W. Davidson, and Christopher W. Fraser. The Design and Application of a Retargetable Peephole Optimizer.

[5] StateCharts from https://guitarvydas.github.io/2023/11/27/Statecharts-Papers-We-Love-Video.html