Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (October 2024)

Re:Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (October 2024) by Timwi on Monday October 28, 2024 @04:01AM (#41968697)

I invented a programming language where you use Unicode box-drawing characters to draw a structure of boxes and lines:

                    ╓───╖
                    ║ ! ║
                    ╙─┬─╜   ┌───╖  ╔═══╗
                ┌─────┴─────┤ > ╟──╢ 2 ║
                │           ╘═╤═╝  ╚═══╝
  ╔════╗  ┌───╖ │             │
  ║ −1 ╟──┤ + ╟─┴─┐           │
  ╚════╝  ╘═╤═╝   │           │
          ┌─┴─╖   │    ╔═══╗  │
          │ ! ║   │    ║ 1 ║  │
          ╘═╤═╝   │    ╚═╤═╝  │
            │   ┌─┴─╖  ┌─┴─╖  │
            │   │ × ╟──┤ ? ╟──┘
            │   ╘═╤═╝  ╘═╤═╝
            └─────┘      │

The language is called Funciton (pronounced: /ˈfʌŋkɪtɒn/) and the above example demonstrates the factorial function.

I made this language over 10 years ago, but earlier this year I've been making YouTube videos in which I describe it in excruciating detail: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkG32PHxWoJaetjKUMVRONWLg...

For my next video, I want to show in detail how the interpreter works. For this purpose I'm creating an elaborate animation. You'll notice that the latest video is already several months old; this is because this animation is more work than I bargained for, and I got a little burned out by it. Nevertheless, I persevere and the video will come out whenever I may finish it.

Language specification: https://esolangs.org/wiki/Funciton

Interpreter: https://codeberg.org/Timwi/Funciton

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Re:Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (October 2024) by sgt on Monday October 28, 2024 @04:37AM (#41968872)

Also impressed with how good this looks on HN :)

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Re:Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (October 2024) by danielvaughn on Monday October 28, 2024 @05:14AM (#41969118)

Yeah I was going to comment the same. Even looks good on mobile.

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Re:Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (October 2024) by sureglymop on Monday October 28, 2024 @08:02AM (#41970218)

This is awesome! I think what it needs now is tooling/an ide to "draw" programs :)

I've long wanted to look for a sort of "ascii drawing program" where one can just draw on a grid with monospace ascii characters and have tools for boxes, circles, etc. Maybe it already exists!

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Re:Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (October 2024) by inrodos on Monday October 28, 2024 @08:29AM (#41970405)

There is a tool called asciiflow which sounds exactly what you are looking for

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Re:Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (October 2024) by toastal on Monday October 28, 2024 @09:39AM (#41970912)

Very cool! +1 for hosting on Codeberg so we don’t have corporate lock-in.

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Re:Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (October 2024) by slightwinder on Monday October 28, 2024 @12:25PM (#41972947)

This seems like something which would be annoying to create digital without supporting tools, but awesome in analog. I could see value in a specialized camera-app which transforms hand drawn box-structures to digital boxes, or a kind of play board where children could arrange cards to create a program and learning programming.

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Re:Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (October 2024) by Timwi on Thursday October 31, 2024 @10:28AM (#42007266)

I doubt that Funciton, in its current form, could be useful in education. It doesn’t embody the most widely used programming paradigm (procedural) but instead is a declarative functional language, which makes any skills obtained by studying it pretty much untransferable. Secondly, its syntax does not allow for naming of variables and parameters (except perhaps through comments) which is an anti-pattern. If these could be addressed in a derivative concept that is actually designed for education, it could work. As it stands, however, it’s just a quirky esolang.

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Re:Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (October 2024) by alonsonic on Monday October 28, 2024 @02:46PM (#41974633)

Videos are actually quite good. Great job!

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Re:Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (October 2024) by hinkley on Monday October 28, 2024 @03:22PM (#41975015)

The “better mousetrap” of visual programming is inventing a diff tool that works decently. If you can do that, the world will beat that path to your doorstep.

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