diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'posts/lisps-assembly-c-and-conlangs.html')
| -rw-r--r-- | posts/lisps-assembly-c-and-conlangs.html | 102 |
1 files changed, 102 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/posts/lisps-assembly-c-and-conlangs.html b/posts/lisps-assembly-c-and-conlangs.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8f2967c --- /dev/null +++ b/posts/lisps-assembly-c-and-conlangs.html @@ -0,0 +1,102 @@ +--post-date: 2019-12-09 +--type: blog + <article> + <h1>Lisps, Assembly, C, and Conlangs</h1> + <p>I had originally hoped to do more blogging as a way of practicing my + writing and an incentive to do more hobby programming. The intent was + never to make this site solely programming, I had actually a few scrapped + posts about baking and guitar that just didn't get anywhere... but + that being said I did have a fair amount of hobbying in 2019 that I can + share some unfiltered, semi-structured thoughts on.</p> + <h2>Racket, 80x86, and even more C</h2> + <h3>Racket</h3> + <p><a target="_blank" + href="https://racket-lang.org">Racket</a> is a general-purpose + lisp-like language. I had began messing around in it with the + intention of creating a similar language to <a target="_blank" + href="https://docs.racket-lang.org/scribble/">Scribble</a> a document + authoring language written in Racket. I made <a target="_blank" + href="https://xkcd.com/1205/">the classic mistake</a> of trying to + create a productivity tool rather than just do the task I had + originally intended to do. It was interesting messing around in a + lisp/functional language which I haven't really used in a long + time. I wish I had more insightful things to say about it or project + to share. Either way its very worth the look.</p> + <h3>6502 -> 80x86 -> Commander X16</h3> + <p>I wanted to play around with writing some assembly language programs. + I looked back at the NES tutorials and tried writing some basic + hello-world programs for it, but never really came out with anything + worth while. I booted up dosbox and tried experimenting in some DOS + programming to get a kick of nostalgia. On my way over to a friends + apartment I stumbled across an 80x86 reference book which I took home and + dug into. I made some decent progress in, relative to my 6502 learning. + But this was in the summer, and I was preparing for what would turn into + a pretty time consuming move. After my move, my puppy, and some youtube, + <a target="_blank" + href="http://www.the8bitguy.com">The 8-Bit Guy</a> made a video about + his 8 Bit computer project <a target="_blank" + href="http://www.commanderx16.com/X16/Ready.html">Commander X16</a> + which I started looking into. Like all the other assembly language + projects they never amounted to more than a few print statements or + colors on the screen. But X16 is something I am going to keep an eye + on in 2020.<br> + <a target="_blank" + href="https://eater.net/">Ben Eater</a> also started a <a target= + "_blank" + href="https://eater.net/6502">6502 video series</a> which was amazing, + and thankfully my learnings from earlier in the year made the content + very understandable. In summary, I spent a lot of 2019 reading and + watching a lot of content about assembly language programming, but + never really did anything with it.</p> + <h3>Never ending C</h3> + <p>Without much to really say on the topic, I kept writing small programs + in C throughout the year. I spent a lot of time debugging and + troubleshooting a prefix terminal calculator with the intention of making + it a full utility to use on the command line / from within scripts. You + could do simple math without opening up x-calc, which I find myself doing + to check some quick math. Example code: <code class="inline">calc "+ + 1 1"</code>. To me this was far cleaner than writing: <code class= + 'inline'>echo $((1+1))</code>. The big ideas I had for it was adding a + REPL and making it a command line calculator tool where you could get the + features of a standard calculator with store and recall functions. This + project involved making two stacks: the operations and the numbers. + Implementing two stacks from scratch was interesting and I may upload the + source and link it in an update. Overall it was full of breaks, bugs, + wrong turns, and bizarre memory issues. So needless to say it was a fun 3 + days of programming.</p> + <h2>Non Programming Writing</h2> + <p>The project that soaked up a majority of my writing time, which sadly + should've been documented here, was my conlang / world-building + project "Tyur". This project spawned out of sci-fi story ideas + that, of course, never went anywhere (due to my poor dialog writing, and + writing in general) and my interest in language history. I have been + reading <a target="_blank" + href= + "https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1831667.The_Horse_the_Wheel_and_Language"> + The Horse the Wheel and Language</a> by David W. Anthony, which goes into + the history around Proto-Indo-European. It can be a bit dense so I had + been reading it on and off, and during the off times also started + <a target="_blank" + href= + "https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18635317-the-origins-of-language">The + Origins of Language: A Slim Guide</a> by James R. Hurford, which tries + to provide insights on the evolutionary concept of language. Both of + these provided some fodder for the idea of creating my own <a target= + "_blank" + href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructed_language">conlang</a>. + My conlang is "Tyur" the language spoken by the Tyur people. + This process has really been a mix of world-building around the Tyur + and some fun fantasy mini story ideas similar to The Lord of the Rings + and old Warhammer Fantasy worlds. This however began my adventure down + the rabbit hole of trying to figure out how to create a font so I can + write more here about it. The documentation on this conlang is a mix + of loose-leaf folded in my bag that I scribble on when I get an idea. + So figuring out a proper way of building the alphabet and some root + words to start a dictionary are my current goals for the remainder of + the year/ start of 2020.</p> + <h2>Closing</h2> + <p>In closing, I think despite not writing much here, I messed around + with some interesting languages this year, and hope I can hobby more in + 2020.</p> + </article> + |