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Arthur Whitney's 'B' Language
21–30 of 109 posts
Re: Arthur Whitney's 'B' Language
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's referenced in the Makefile.
On a possibly unhelpful tangent, I'm expecting it to look something like this: https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Essays/Incunabulum
It sure does: http://kparc.com/b/b.c
Re: Arthur Whitney's 'B' Language
#23I studied this code for a long time. I have lots of notes, going through everything almost line by line. I would be embarrassed of making them public because I never finished (at some point, I was just rewriting the x64 reference), but if somebody is interested I do not mind sharing.
I would recommend everyone doing C to have a very careful look at this. The code is full of nice tricks and you start appreciating the terse style after a while. I understand why this style is not more commonly used, but I really like it.
Re: Arthur Whitney's 'B' Language
#24I studied this code for a long time. I have lots of notes, going through everything almost line by line. I would be embarrassed of making them public because I never finished (at some point, I was just rewriting the x64 reference), but if somebody is interested I do not mind sharing. I would recommend everyone doing C to have a very careful look at this. The code is full of nice tricks and you start appreciating the…
I would love to take a look at your notes. I'm fascinated by this and would greatly appreciate any help approaching it
Re: Arthur Whitney's 'B' Language
#25I studied this code for a long time. I have lots of notes, going through everything almost line by line. I would be embarrassed of making them public because I never finished (at some point, I was just rewriting the x64 reference), but if somebody is interested I do not mind sharing. I would recommend everyone doing C to have a very careful look at this. The code is full of nice tricks and you start appreciating the…
I would love to take a look at your notes. I'm fascinated by this and would greatly appreciate any help approaching it
Here it is for anyone who wants to have a look: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W83ME5JecI2hd5hAUqQ1BVF3...
I recommend you to keep the original files at hand for reference. Once you have understood it the first time, they are a better reference than my many pages document. When AW says he hates scrolling, it is not because he is lazy, it just doesn't go well with this style.
I am sure there are mistakes. If you find any, please let me know.
Re: Arthur Whitney's 'B' Language
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would love to take a look at your notes. I'm fascinated by this and would greatly appreciate any help approaching it
Here it is for anyone who wants to have a look: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W83ME5JecI2hd5hAUqQ1BVF3... I recommend you to keep the original files at hand for reference. Once you have understood it the first time, they are a better reference than my many pages document. When AW says he hates scrolling, it is not because he is lazy, it just doesn't go well with this style. I am sure there are mistakes. If you…
Thank you! This is awesome
Re: Arthur Whitney's 'B' Language
#27Programming is not telling the machine what to do. That's the easy part.
What programming is about, and what's hard, is telling the next programmer what the machine does.
This makes the easy part a bit easier, and the hard part much harder, than using C. And I already disliked C to begin with, for similar reasons.
Re: Arthur Whitney's 'B' Language
#28I studied this code for a long time. I have lots of notes, going through everything almost line by line. I would be embarrassed of making them public because I never finished (at some point, I was just rewriting the x64 reference), but if somebody is interested I do not mind sharing. I would recommend everyone doing C to have a very careful look at this. The code is full of nice tricks and you start appreciating the…
I wish* exist a simplified implementation of this (or APL) in "normal" looking code.
Array languages are the most "obscure" of all paradigms I have looked into. Even concatenative ones have some few resources about how work.
Also, the community live in a parallel world! So when asked about stuff, redirect me to https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Essays/Incunabulum or https://github.com/kevinlawler/kona as if it somehow make everything so obvious ...
P.D*: Because I'm building a language that try to draw some ideas from kdb
Re: Arthur Whitney's 'B' Language
#29Whitney follows the enlightened solution to the NL=\n|\r\n debate, just don't end your lines ever.
I believe the modern term is 'galaxy brain'
Re: Arthur Whitney's 'B' Language
#30Whitney is so fascinating to me. His code is simultaneously awe-inspiring and horrifying. It's like he struck a Faustian bargain to gain programming powers beyond the ken of mere mortals, and is now cursed to write transcendently beautiful code that manifests as unintelligible gibberish to everyone else.
If you think this is horrifying you should see what people-who-aren't-Whitney write when they're copying his style, or adding to his codebase.