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Build your own X: project-based programming tutorials

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Re: Build your own X: project-based programming tutorials

#11

Post by DonHopkins »

matttb wrote: post #7

Similar for anyone interested: https://github.com/tuvtran/project-based-learning https://github.com/AlgoryL/Projects-from-Scratch https://github.com/rby90/Project-Based-Tutorials-in-C

I was hoping that second one was about Scratch, the visual blocks programming language for kids, similar to Logo, based on a Smalltalk development environment (which is a lot better than X!)

If you're interested in visual programming with a powerful Scheme-like language with first class functions, closures, special forms, macros, and even continuations so you can define your own control structures, check out Snap! (The exclamation mark is part of the name, so it's easy to get excited about Snap!)

It's a descendent of Scratch but more powerful, hand-written in JavaScript instead of Smalltalk, and it integrates easily with JS code. (There's a user defined JavaScript function block that you can use to integrate with the Snap VM and the browser!)

Snap was written by Jens Mönig and Brian Harvey, who know what they're doing! ;)

https://snap.berkeley.edu

Y Combinator: https://i.imgur.com/cOq8tvR.png

A* Pathfinding Demo: https://snap.berkeley.edu/snapsource/snap.html#present:Usern... (press the diagonal arrow button at the top to see the block code in the development environment!)

Snap! is a visual programming language inspired by Scratch. Run Snap! in your browser at http://snap.berkeley.edu/run The IIIA1 in the title means that this is the first tutorial corresponding to Chapter III, Section A of the Reference Manual at http://snap.berkeley.edu/SnapManual.pdf

Snap! Tutorial IIIA1: Make a block https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bbl2fh3igQ4

Snap! Tutorial IIIA2: Custom Blocks with Inputs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZC2tDVYWBo

The Basics of Snap! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAxqwwg4uhk

Prototypical Inheritance in Snap! (no audio) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvlWvHgfrlw

Editing Formulas in Snap! (no audio) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahHAl3p3gEU

Re: Build your own X: project-based programming tutorials

#12

Post by ronsor »

DonHopkins wrote: post #8
usmannk wrote: post #2

Went into this thinking it was about the X Window System[1]. Pleasantly surprised! Lots of cool stuff here. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System

I agree, it would have been such an unpleasant surprise to see another implementation of X-Windows! ;) https://medium.com/@donhopkins/the-x-windows-disaster-128d39...

Actually a less unwieldy implementation of X11 would be nice. Preferably in Go or Rust.

Re: Build your own X: project-based programming tutorials

#13

Post by jacobush »

ronsor wrote: post #12
DonHopkins wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, it would have been such an unpleasant surprise to see another implementation of X-Windows! ;) https://medium.com/@donhopkins/the-x-windows-disaster-128d39...

Actually a less unwieldy implementation of X11 would be nice. Preferably in Go or Rust.

Would it be X11 then?

Re: Build your own X: project-based programming tutorials

#14

Post by DonHopkins »

ronsor wrote: post #12
DonHopkins wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, it would have been such an unpleasant surprise to see another implementation of X-Windows! ;) https://medium.com/@donhopkins/the-x-windows-disaster-128d39...

Actually a less unwieldy implementation of X11 would be nice. Preferably in Go or Rust.

Hasn't somebody reimplemented X11 in JavaScript/canvas/websockets yet?

There was an X11 server for Lisp Machines! Not sure who wrote it, but it was probably written inside or at least nearby the X Consortium, and I remember Robert Scheifler used it regularly.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6864364

"For example the TI Explorer Lisp Machine came with an X11 server written in Lisp. On my Symbolics Lisp Machine I used the usual MIT X11 server written in C - this was possible because the Symbolics Lisp machine had a C compiler." -lispm

John Steinhart wrote XTool, a nice snappy reimplementation of X11 on top of SunView! ;)

https://minnie.tuhs.org//pipermail/tuhs/2017-September/01047...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15325226

>XTool was very small and fast compared to the X sample server because I wrote the server from scratch. I think that I'm the only person to write an X server outside of the X Consortium. One of the things that I learned by doing it was that the X Consortium folks were wrong when they said that the documentation was the standard, not the sample server. There were significant differences between the two.

>The only really worthwhile thing about X was the distributed extension registration mechanism. All of the input, graphics and other crap should be moved to extension #1. That way, it won't be mandatory in conforming implementations once that stuff was obsolete. As you probably know, that's where we are today; nobody uses that stuff but it's like the corner of an Intel chip that implements the original instruction set. As an aside, I upset many when working on OpenDoc for Apple and saying the same thing there.

>The atom/property mechanism allows clients to allocate memory in the server that can never be freed. Some way to free memory needs to be added.

>The bit encodings should be part of a separate language binding, not part of the functional description.

>Had he done some real design work and looked at what others were doing he might have realized that at its core, X was a distributed database system in which operations on some of the databases have visual side-effects. I forget the exact number, but X includes around 20 different databases: atoms, properties, contexts, selections, keymaps, etc. each with their own set of API calls. As a result, the X API is wide and shallow like the Mac, and full of interesting race conditions to boot. The whole thing could have been done with less than a dozen API calls.

Re: Build your own X: project-based programming tutorials

#16

Post by hugocbp »

This is great! I always had this idea of trying to "build my own" to learn stuff ever since I followed along a book called "Rebuilding Rails" and so much stuff "clicked" for me.

I've already starred the repo and when I have time I'll search my Evernote because I know there a few notes there from projects that would fit this collection.

Re: Build your own X: project-based programming tutorials

#17

Post by geofft »

usmannk wrote: post #2

Went into this thinking it was about the X Window System[1]. Pleasantly surprised! Lots of cool stuff here. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System

Take a look at Jasper St. Pierre's "Xplain" implementation: https://magcius.github.io/xplain/article/

Re: Build your own X: project-based programming tutorials

#19

Post by gravypod »

Something that I've been trying to learn how to do, but haven't found any information on and that seems missing from this tutorial, is how to write a 3D game in Vulkan. There are many entries in here about using OpenGL but nothing in here, it seems, about Vulkan. This seems like a common pattern online. Does anyone have any recommendations for a tutorial that could also be contributed to the master list?
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