This Pico-8 cart showcases a collaborative demo called "The Mind" by Haujobb (music) and Sweet16 (code). It features synchronized visuals pulsating and evolving to a complex and driving electronic soundtrack. The demo pushes the Pico-8's graphical capabilities with intricate patterns, particle effects, and palette shifts, creating a mesmerizing audiovisual experience.
Defold is a free and open-source 2D game engine designed for rapid development. It features a streamlined workflow with its own integrated editor, supports Lua scripting, and offers a wide range of built-in tools for graphics, physics, animation, and sound. Targeting multiple platforms including iOS, Android, HTML5, Windows, macOS, and Linux, Defold simplifies cross-platform deployment with a single-click build process. Its focus on efficiency allows for small game sizes and optimal performance, making it suitable for a variety of game genres and platforms.
Hacker News users discuss Defold's ease of use, especially for beginners, and its suitability for 2D games. Some praise its small executable size and fast iteration times, while others highlight the active community and helpful documentation. Concerns include its limited 3D capabilities, the small talent pool, and uncertainty about its long-term viability despite its acquisition by King and subsequent independence. Several users share their positive experiences using Defold for both personal projects and commercially released games, citing its performance and streamlined workflow. The editor is lauded as clean and efficient. Some express disappointment in King's handling of the engine after acquiring it, but also optimism about its future as an independent entity once again.
The author reflects positively on their experience using Lua for a 60k-line project. They praise Lua's speed, small size, and ease of embedding. While acknowledging the limited ecosystem and tooling compared to larger languages, they found the simplicity and resulting stability to be major advantages. Minor frustrations included the standard library's limitations, especially regarding string manipulation, and the lack of static typing. Overall, Lua proved remarkably effective for their needs, offering a productive and efficient development experience despite some drawbacks. They highlight LuaJIT's exceptional performance and recommend it for CPU-bound tasks.
Hacker News users generally agreed with the author's assessment of Lua, praising its speed, simplicity, and ease of integration. Several commenters highlighted their own positive experiences with Lua, particularly in game development and embedded systems. Some discussed the limitations of the standard library and the importance of choosing good third-party libraries. The lack of static typing was mentioned as a drawback, though some argued that good testing practices mitigate this issue. A few commenters also pointed out that 60k lines of code is not exceptionally large, providing context for the author's experience. The overall sentiment was positive towards Lua, with several users recommending it for specific use cases.
Lilly is a TUI text editor built with Rust that aims to offer a modern, performant, and customizable alternative to Vim and Neovim. It prioritizes extensibility through plugins written in Lua, offering a familiar experience for Neovim users. Featuring built-in Language Server Protocol (LSP) support, tree-sitter for syntax highlighting, and asynchronous execution for responsiveness, Lilly seeks to combine the speed and efficiency of a terminal interface with the advanced features of modern GUI editors. The project is actively under development and welcomes contributions.
Hacker News users discuss Lilly, a TUI editor and potential Vim/Neovim alternative, focusing on its Lua extensibility and clean slate design. Some express excitement about a modern, scriptable TUI editor, praising its apparent performance and the potential of Lua for customization. Others question its long-term viability given the established competition, and some debate the merits of modal vs. non-modal editing. Several commenters highlight the difficulty of attracting users away from entrenched editors, while others suggest Lilly could find a niche among those seeking a simpler, more easily customized TUI experience. A few express interest in specific features like the integrated file explorer and fuzzy finder. Overall, the comments show cautious optimism tempered by an awareness of the challenges faced by new text editors.
This 2015 blog post demonstrates how to leverage Lua's flexible syntax and metamechanisms to create a Domain Specific Language (DSL) for generating HTML. The author uses Lua's tables and functions to create a clean, readable syntax that abstracts away the verbosity of raw HTML. By overloading the concatenation operator and utilizing metatables, the DSL allows users to build HTML elements and structures in a declarative way, mirroring the structure of the output. This approach simplifies HTML generation within Lua, making the code cleaner and more maintainable. The post provides concrete examples showing how to define tags, attributes, and nested elements, offering a practical guide to building similar DSLs for other output formats.
Hacker News users generally praised the article for its clear explanation of building a DSL in Lua, particularly appreciating the focus on leveraging Lua's existing features and metamechanisms. Several commenters shared their own experiences and preferences for using Lua for DSLs, including its use in game development and configuration management. One commenter pointed out potential performance considerations when using this approach, suggesting that precompilation could mitigate some overhead. Others discussed alternative methods for building DSLs, such as using parser generators. The use of Lua's setfenv was highlighted, with some acknowledging its power while others expressing caution due to potential debugging difficulties. A few users also mentioned other languages like Fennel and Janet as interesting alternatives to Lua for similar purposes.
Daily-notes.nvim is a Neovim plugin designed for effortless time-based journaling and planning. It enables users to quickly create and access daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly notes based on the current date, using fuzzy finding for easy navigation. The plugin supports custom date formats, integrates with the Telescope fuzzy finder, and offers features like opening notes for specific dates or creating notes if they don't exist. It aims to provide a streamlined and efficient workflow for maintaining a structured journal or planner within Neovim.
Hacker News users generally praised the daily-notes.nvim plugin for its simplicity and speed compared to alternatives like Obsidian. Several commenters appreciated its integration with Telescope.nvim for fuzzy finding. Some suggested improvements, including the ability to specify a custom date format and integration with the calendar.vim plugin. One commenter pointed out the potential benefit of using a simpler file naming convention for improved compatibility with other tools. Another user mentioned using a similar setup with plain Vim and expressed interest in trying the plugin. There was some discussion on the benefits of plain text notes versus a database-driven system, with proponents of plain text highlighting its flexibility and longevity.
Modest is a Lua library designed for working with musical harmony. It provides functionality for representing notes, chords, scales, and intervals, allowing for manipulation and analysis of musical structures. The library supports various operations like transposing, inverting, and identifying chord qualities. It also includes features for working with different tuning systems and generating musical progressions. Modest aims to be a lightweight and efficient tool for music-related applications in Lua, suitable for everything from algorithmic composition to music theory analysis.
HN users generally expressed interest in Modest, praising its clean API and the potential usefulness of a music theory library in Lua. Some users suggested potential improvements like adding support for microtones, different tuning systems, and rhythm representation. One commenter specifically appreciated the clear documentation and examples provided. The discussion also touched on other music-related Lua libraries and tools, such as LÖVE2D and Euterpea, comparing their features and approaches to music generation and manipulation. There was some brief discussion about the choice of Lua, with one user mentioning its suitability for embedded systems and real-time applications.
Magenta.nvim is a Neovim plugin designed to enhance coding workflows by leveraging large language models (LLMs) as tools. It emphasizes structured requests and responses, allowing users to define custom tools and workflows for various tasks like generating documentation, refactoring code, and finding bugs. Instead of simply autocompleting code, Magenta focuses on invoking external tools based on user prompts within Neovim, providing more controlled and predictable AI assistance. It supports various LLMs and features asynchronous execution for minimizing disruptions. The plugin prioritizes flexibility and customizability, allowing developers to tailor their AI-powered tools to their specific needs and projects.
Hacker News users generally expressed interest in Magenta.nvim, praising its focus on tool integration and the novel approach of using external tools rather than relying solely on large language models (LLMs). Some commenters compared it favorably to other AI coding assistants, highlighting its potential for more reliable and predictable behavior. Several expressed excitement about the possibilities of tool-based code generation and hoped to see support for additional tools beyond the initial offerings. A few users questioned the reliance on external dependencies and raised concerns about potential complexity and performance overhead. Others pointed out the project's early stage and suggested potential improvements, such as asynchronous execution and better error handling. Overall, the sentiment was positive, with many eager to try the plugin and see its further development.
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https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43735592
Hacker News users discuss the impressive technical feat of recreating Haujobb's "The Mind" demo within the constraints of PICO-8's limited resources. Several commenters praise the clever optimization techniques used, particularly the procedural generation of visuals and audio, highlighting the ingenuity required to achieve such complexity on a simple platform. Some users share their nostalgia for the demoscene and express admiration for the dedication and skill involved in this kind of creative coding. Others delve into the specifics of PICO-8's capabilities and limitations, comparing the original demo to this recreation. The overall sentiment is one of appreciation for the technical achievement and the artistic merit of the project.
The Hacker News post titled "Demo "The Mind" by Haujobb and Sweet16" linking to a Lexaloffle BBS post showcasing a Pico-8 demo has a modest number of comments, mainly focusing on technical appreciation and nostalgic reflections.
Several commenters express admiration for the demo's technical achievements within the limitations of the Pico-8 platform. One user highlights the clever use of visual effects, particularly the "plasma" effect, praising its implementation despite the system's constrained resources. Another comment emphasizes the overall impressive quality of the demo, considering the Pico-8's limited color palette and resolution. The minimalist aesthetic and efficient use of resources are recurring themes of praise.
The discussion also touches on the demo's music, with one commenter appreciating the "industrial" soundtrack, linking it to the style of the artist Haujobb mentioned in the title. This connection further contextualizes the demo within a specific genre and artistic influence.
A few comments delve into the technical aspects of Pico-8 development. One user inquires about the tools and techniques used to create such a demo, demonstrating an interest in the process behind the final product. Another comment references similar demos and the broader demoscene culture, positioning this particular work within a larger community and historical context.
Nostalgia for older computer systems and the demoscene of the past is also present. One commenter draws parallels to the Amiga demoscene, reminiscing about similar visual styles and technical limitations. This sentiment suggests that the demo resonates with those familiar with the history of computer graphics and the creative challenges posed by limited hardware.
While the overall number of comments isn't extensive, the discussion provides valuable insight into the technical merits of the demo, its artistic influences, and its connection to the broader demoscene culture and the nostalgia associated with it. The comments avoid summarizing the linked article and instead focus on reactions and analysis of the demo itself.