Hacker News: alaaalawi

New comment by alaaalawi in "Writing a Game Boy Emulator in OCaml (2022)"

alaaalawi — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 01:34:53 +0000

chill bro. spending some time on Elm is not the end of the world and not a serious issue! the question was about learning and not concerned about production and this was one of the available examples to maybe have a look at.

New comment by alaaalawi in "Writing a Game Boy Emulator in OCaml (2022)"

alaaalawi — Fri, 04 Jul 2025 22:13:31 +0000

Also another option for fun in the browser Elm. check out similar older project https://github.com/Malax/elmboy

New comment by alaaalawi in "Writing a Game Boy Emulator in OCaml (2022)"

alaaalawi — Fri, 04 Jul 2025 17:48:35 +0000

one of the options for fast iterations would be Forth. in its circles, it famous for generation targets and cross compiling between archs. seaech the net you shold find plenty.

New comment by alaaalawi in "LLMs as Compilers"

alaaalawi — Thu, 03 Jul 2025 06:21:19 +0000

I concur. not intermediate code directly machine code, even no tests. It will take human specs internally understand them (maybe formal methods of reasoning) and keep chatting with the user asking about any gaps (you. mentioned a and c, what about b) or ask for clarification on inconsistencies (i.e. in point 16 you mentioned that and in point 50 you mentioned this, to my limited understanding doesn't this contradicts? for example if we have that based on point 16 and have that based point 50,how do you resolve it. in short will act as business analysis with no (imagined) ego or annoyance in the middle by the user. from talk to walk

New comment by alaaalawi in "Soda Can Stove"

alaaalawi — Sun, 25 May 2025 08:21:12 +0000

this looks similar

http://web.archive.org/web/20080211102811/http://www.pcthike...

New comment by alaaalawi in "You should write "without bugs""

alaaalawi — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 17:49:49 +0000

Achieving Correctness is really satisfying. however it is hard and difficult. IMOH this does in general polarize the scene (proving fanatics on one extreme and the other side who are not even testing the code) IMHO flushing out what you are designing does help and goes along the way of having fewer bugs. one old relatively yet easy and accessible formal toolkit which helpful in flushing out process is Z notation . one of the accessible books, old yet an easy read and rewarding is

"Software Development with Z. A practical approach to formal methods in software engineering"

https://archive.org/details/softwaredevelopm0000word/page/n1... .

there are other notations developed later. but its simplicity and easiness even while scribling on paper or word processor gets me back to using it every now and then

New comment by alaaalawi in "GitHub cuts AI deals with Google, Anthropic"

alaaalawi — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:26:41 +0000

MMV But for me at least i tend to use it for brain storming, aka intial sailing through a subject/topic/task, getting intial idea. the idea is to use as an admin who is guided by you throgh chatting. for example im given a task to translate a user description/requirement to pull something from the database. like (simplistic example) what are the top grossing films by category within each rating. so igive the AI the database tables schema and give it literally the user requirement. and see what it gave back and compare it with how I'll do it. ask it more for optimizations what else can be done more.... etc.. keep chating with the AI until I'm bored ;)

New comment by alaaalawi in "My insulin pump controller has a bug"

alaaalawi — Fri, 01 Dec 2023 14:33:05 +0000

for these critical applications which require reliable oprations as lives are at stack. formal verfication will help by reducing bugs more than traditional testing. they are not bullet proof but still better. z notation is one of many.

New comment by alaaalawi in "milliForth"

alaaalawi — Wed, 08 Nov 2023 09:46:43 +0000

i'd like to know the source. and the reasons i know long time ago are about more innovative work. like more compression, keyboard layout optimization, like having the code compiled in the source and utilizing the space to embed the meaning so there is no multiple parsing and compiling. even vars are living inthe code alive. and others i don't remember now.

New comment by alaaalawi in "FDA schedules meeting to establish regulatory rules for artificial womb trials"

alaaalawi — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 20:16:44 +0000

its really leads to all sorts of question. when markets for eggs and sperms to be sold directly to interested (the layman) are there and the buyer funds the rent of the artificial womb and the food/nutrition + bio conditions. will he be the father or the owner? if more over the buyer have a farm (so to speak) of wombs?

New comment by alaaalawi in "Why split lexing and parsing into two separate phases?"

alaaalawi — Sun, 07 May 2023 21:12:25 +0000

this may be interseting (YMMV) read page 50 of "Compiler Construction for Digital Computers" 1971 which lists other reason some which are still valid and good to know

New comment by alaaalawi in "The State of the Awk (2020)"

alaaalawi — Fri, 20 Jan 2023 15:14:23 +0000

i. missed up the code

  digits = '0123456789'
  patt = "foo=" SPAN(digits) . num
  while line = INPUT
      if  line ? patt
          OUTPUT = num
      endif
   end

New comment by alaaalawi in "The State of the Awk (2020)"

alaaalawi — Fri, 20 Jan 2023 15:10:51 +0000

i like awk. but i hate Regexp (YMMV). but for different perspective check out SNOBOL or its speedier variant Spitbol. although not one liner, but i find patterns easier to compose like functions. $anchor = 0 digits = '0123456789' patt = "foo=" SPAN(digits) . num while line = INPUT if line ? patt OUTPUT = num endif end

end

NOTE1: reading variable INPUT. reads from input. assignment to OUTPUT writes to output. normally assigned to STDIN and SDTOUT, and can be configured.

NOTE2: there is no real while or if. flow is through labels and jumps (considered by some as power but i disagree). above example uses another script to transform while and if into labels and jumps. the point is that patterns composition and success match assignment.

New comment by alaaalawi in "The beauty of CGI and simple design"

alaaalawi — Sun, 08 Jan 2023 10:25:58 +0000

YMMV, but thats why i love Forth. it compiles the full app (not interpret) in ms. some think its dead or only for the embedded, but for me and my projects its a deadly combination + ultra fun.

New comment by alaaalawi in "The APL Source Code (2012)"

alaaalawi — Tue, 20 Dec 2022 13:41:06 +0000

we need just the correct expectations. APL is like mathematics for me. i need to read it several time to understand dense unfamiliar terms and formulas. same goes for APL. it is not the typical language which i assume can be read while driving

New comment by alaaalawi in "Vim Foot Pedal"

alaaalawi — Mon, 19 Dec 2022 15:21:10 +0000

I did and still comfortable with the following YMMV. Alt -> Ctrl Ctrl -> Alt Caps -> Esc Esc -> Caps

New comment by alaaalawi in "You can watch how much I rewrite here"

alaaalawi — Mon, 19 Sep 2022 16:29:52 +0000

Sometimes FORTH shines here. Space is the delimiter. and consequently you can mumble the name on the keyboard without stopping at the moment. you have mix of all digits alphabet and symbols into one token. |alpha| x^y ~x #items [a-b] however YMMV

New comment by alaaalawi in "Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming (1992)"

alaaalawi — Sun, 14 Aug 2022 14:11:29 +0000

Many people will fret when mentioning a commercial vendor. but IMHO and YMMV the leaset systems to get going with the least hassle would be either Lispworks or Allegro and both offer trial versions not getting in your way throughout the book (even though I'm Emacs SLIME user for long time). I'm interested in user minimzing unrelated side topics and spiral customization (I love them) and focusing on the book

New comment by alaaalawi in "How to stay focused while working on your startup and having a 9 to 5"

alaaalawi — Sat, 13 Aug 2022 15:37:22 +0000

YMMV but either way its for the owners. The rest are more or less in a job

New comment by alaaalawi in "Are modules without imports “considered harmful”?"

alaaalawi — Wed, 09 Feb 2022 16:47:35 +0000

Also check Oberon the language and its module system. and was used to create Oberon the system. all procedures/functions are called like this: M.F (Module name - it can be abbreviated but not removed, and F procedure/functions.)