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𝟙𝟜·
Periodically, I tell myself I'm going to alternate exploratory coding (aka hacking) with a phase of refactoring toward a clear design (aka cleanup). The problem is
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the clear design phase may never happen - it's too easy to be satisfied with code that passes the current testing, however informal. On the other hand, it's easy to
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overcommit to a clear, elegant design, and if it doesn't meet some of the goals set for the project, it can be a major issue.
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I'm here again, thinking my solo recreational coding would be more fun if I took time to consolidate what I've learned into a good design. Process options are plenty,
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but I probably can't master the discipline of most - e.g. separate branches for exploratory phases seems heavy handed on a solo project. Alternating priorities always
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feels like the best thing to try, but I usually can't stick to it - maybe that ADHD diagnosis isn't so far off...
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Of course, AI assistance is becoming standard practice, and beyond quickly finding simple mistakes, it can refactor efficiently and even take part in a friendly chat
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about what the plan is. The increases in productivity, even if human programmers end up only in a code review role, is hard to resist in business.
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But I'm programming because I enjoy it. Algorithmic assistance is great, as long as I could have a hope of understanding the algorithms being used. Maybe I could
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figure out how LLM's work, but the current systems are massive, remote black box servers - which isn't part of the fun for me. The fun is opening the black boxes and
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figuring out what's going on inside.
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𝟘𝟞·
Woof! Slow progress... ⟪Sapphire⟫ has both logic and domain variables - a named value which may be left unspecified, given a value as assertions are simplified and
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resolved. Both ‘x=3’ and ‘3=x’ mean the same thing - as an assertion it is resolved in ⟪Silver⟫ if ‘x’ evaluates to 3, but if something else, a contradiction is
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flagged. If x has no value, ⟪Silver⟫ resolves the assertion by assigning 3 to x. For finite problems, functions and relations can be treated as domain or logic
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variable spaces, respectively. To dig myself out from under earlier hacks, I'm rewriting things around what I'm calling ‘free order variables’ for now, which are just
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⟨key table⟩ pairs, replacing constrained expressions with, in theory at least, nested function calls...
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𝟚𝟝·
Changes are settling and maybe my OCD will give me a chance to work on something else for a bit. Between making these changes too haphazardly and global distractions,
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everything else has been suffering neglect. A pause, then forward on Slitherlink puzzles and, hopefully, some graphics fun!
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𝟚𝟛·
The transition to treating constraints as a class of ⟪Iron⟫ Interpreter internal values has been... slow. I make a mess when I'm exploring to find a solution or
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implementation that works and meets my design goals. Breaking changes are a time to consolidate the current design before going forward... I was too focused on
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getting to the next exploration - constraints as first class values, and, well, messed up.
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𝟘𝟡·
I often pass keyword parameters to a subroutine unchanged, and ended up with alot of ‘keyword=keyword’ code in Python function calls. Reserving ‘=’ for the equality
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predicate (I just replace ‘=’ with ‘==’ when generating Python or C) I instead use ‘→’ to pass keyword parameters - ‘keyword→7’. I added a postfix operator ‘→←’ to
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pass the value of the variable as the keyword, so I can abbreviate ‘keyword→keyword’ ·as ‘keyword→←’.
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𝟘𝟠·
I've been on a side trip to additional ‘rational’ code generation based on syntactic analysis rather than ad-hoc text manipulation. This next stage let me translate
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operators (‘⊗’ and ‘⊙’ for cross and dot-product) into calls to generic functions, but there's more work to make it remotely robust.
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𝟛𝟘·
I've been bogged down by my bootstrapping shenanigans. I finally decided to re-execl the current build when cyclic dependencies could change generated code. Because
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I'm building my tools in place, I use a “revert-bootstraps” routine often to deal with all-to-frequent breakage.
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𝟚𝟠·
More language infrastructure progress - I've got code generating from the ⟪Violet⟫ language layer that bridges between ⟪Cobalt⟫ (aka C) and ⟪Midnight⟫ (aka Python). I
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generate code that uses Python's ‘ctypes’ module to call C from Python, making it easy to mix and match implementations.
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𝟚𝟞·
I took a small step toward sensible language handling by generating a full parse tree for a small input file. Starting life as a no-op, my evolving ‘zypp’
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preprocessor converts ⟪Midnight⟫ and ⟪Cobalt⟫ to Python and C, respectively, in an entirely ad-hoc fashion. At least I know I can create an inviting bug hotel.
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Eventually, each language layer I use will share a unified parser, but different intermediate code generators which will perform first level semantic checks. The
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intermiedate language will support high level primitives that can be lowered to target subsets which can be used to emit code. My ⟪Sapphire⟫ project has a good deal
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of infrastructure to cope with.
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𝟚𝟚·
I'm using ‘⊙‘ for dot product and ‘⊗’ for cross product. My preprocessor translates these from binary operators into calls to ‘dot’ and ‘cross’, which are native in
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GLSL and implemented in Python to work on number sequences of equal length (dot) or only 3-tuples of numbers (cross).
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𝟚𝟚·
While I use Unicode extensively and appreciate its near universal adoption and support, I object to any description of it as a “character set”. It is far closer to
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Donald Knuth's TeX than an encoding of an alphabet.
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For computing, a “character set” is an encoding of an alphabet - essentially, the association of an integer with each of a finite set of symbols. The symbols have
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associated perceptual representations (visual, auditory, tactile) that allow human beings to associate differeent sequences with different meanings. If we remove
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control values from Unicode (modifiers and typesetting indicators) and discard codepoints whith glyphs similar to those of lower codepoints, we are left with a
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workable character set. We'd also like human beings to naturally associate meaning with words to form human readable language.
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The maximal character set subset of Unicode overdelivers for the vast majority of human beings. Perhaps it will change over time, but only a portion are recognizable
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to many of us - my dinosaur DNA seems irreperable. This intentional inclusiveity is a key feature of Unicode, but to be complete, it requires typesetting features.
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And bidirectional text is a mess for formal languages. When we see at 1÷2 we have to look at the surrounding characters to know if it's the same 0.5 (e.g. A 1÷2 A) or
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2.0 (e.g. א 2÷1 א). Or is that really 5.0? Bidirectional overrides are only discouraged, so we can't really tell if AND is A→N→D or A←N←D (the same as D→N→A) by
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looking. Since my editor (Emacs) seems to follow unicode rules, editing שרה means when I move the cursor to the right, it goes left! Further, these identically
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encoded arrows all point right, A→N→D, ש→ר→ה, indicating first to last for Latin and last to first in Hebrew. Is it better that the middle right paren A)A is the same
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as this middle ש)ש left paren (they're both encoded as hex 29). With A₁ vs א₁, Emacs does the Unicode thing... oh yeah, the mathematical aleph is different: I use ℵ₁
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when I print the size of a countably infinite subset of ℤ.
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The mathematical typeface variations of the latin alphabet are really great for presentation (I display ℤ when I know Z represents the integers) but frustrate when
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trying to make auditory distinctions.
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So I (internally) use my own (still evolving) “Zy Logical Character Set” aka “Zylch” (the "zy" is vestigial, but still makes for entertaining acronyms) for formal
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languages. It's a single byte encoding that starts with the digits 0⋯9, followed by the 26 uppercase then 26 lowercase letters of English. Digits, including hex, are
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represented with their own value! Then a bunch of symbols that change from week to week... Again, dinosaur brain, and it works for what I'm playing around with. [last
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edited 2026-01-18]
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𝟚𝟙·
I updated my color text routines that I use in all my Python tools to proceess faster when read into Emacs. One day, I may create an IDE for my ‘neo-retro’
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logic-puzzle computing environment, but Emacs is still the best tool for me.
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𝟙𝟘·
For my symbolic logic projects, I'm organizing my code around a division between the abstract for logic and concrete programmer-centric domains.
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𝟙𝟘·
The git ‘index’ is like a little mini-commit zone. I backup my bare git repositories regularly but by incrementally diffing and reviewing changes using the index
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feels lighter weight than a commit, and not atrisk of being pushed or fetched by accident on my test machines.
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𝟙𝟠·
I've been enjoying Python's tremendous flexibility but am converging, with support from a preprocessor, on a consistent style. Once things are stable enough to focus
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on performance, I'll use my preprocessor to target a mix of C or C++ and a more performant runtime than the standard Python interpreter.