path: root/2022/captions/emacsconf-2022-asmblox--asmblox-a-game-based-on-webassembly-that-no-one-asked-for--zachary-romero--answers.vtt

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NOTE
Introduction

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[Amin]: All right. Hey, everyone. Thanks, Zach, for the great talk. Here is a live Q&A.

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People can start putting the questions onto the pad, and Zach will answer them.

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Zach, take it away. Thanks, Zach. Here is a live Q&A.

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[Zach]: Okay. So, first question. Let's see.

NOTE Why did you choose an internal state versus many 'state buffers'?

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Okay. So, the first question is why did you choose an internal state

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versus many state buffers? So, the main reason was more control

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from the game perspective. I mean, if this was to be a tool,

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if this was to be a tool that perhaps was used for more, like,

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real-world applications where maybe you'd want users to be able to, like,

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use any of their preexisting

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— like, if you wanted to really make a grid of cells that would —

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so, then I think maybe using real buffers in that case

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would probably be the better thing since you wouldn't have to, like,

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redo everything. But I found that just, like, centralizing the state

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into one place for the game at least made it the easiest to implement.

NOTE Do you have plans to port shenzhen.io to Emacs?

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Next one. Do you have plans to port Shenzhen I.O. to Emacs?

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Well, I was actually thinking about exopunks, perhaps,

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but Shenzhen I.O. would be pretty cool to add as well.

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So, this doesn't use any Wasm at all.

NOTE Did this use WASM?

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So, the next question is, did this use Wasm?

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So, it's asking about, like, using Wasm Emacs. So, this actually —

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this doesn't use any Wasm under the hood.

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It's pretty much analogous to the game TIS 100 is to real assembly

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as this game is to web assembly. Slight resemblance, but, yeah, just a game.

NOTE Why wasm rather than a more traditional Assembly dialect? It wouldn't be harder to implement, right?

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So, okay, so the next question is why Wasm

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rather than a more traditional assembly dialect?

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It wouldn't be harder to implement, right?

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So, it would actually probably have been easier, in all honesty, just because,

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you know, more traditional — like, TIS 100, for example.

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You have each of the — you have each instruction on a line,

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and it's pretty easy to, you know, syntax hiding just one line.

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So, this with the weird S expressions across the line, deeply nested,

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and then, like, the step debugger thing and these weird cell things.

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They made things really complicated, but I definitely wanted to, like —

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the main reason is I didn't — I wanted it to not — to look as least as —

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to look — to resemble TIS 100 as little as possible,

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even though it's still pretty much the same game.

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[Amin]: Thanks, Zach. I think we still have about, like, eight minutes or so.

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Or eight and a half minutes of Q&A time.

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So, folks, if you do have any other questions,

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please do keep them coming in the pad, and, yeah,

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Zach will continue answering them.

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[Zach]: Sounds good. Thank you.

NOTE Any next projects on your mind?

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So, next question. Any next projects on your mind?

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Yeah, actually, I have a couple ideas for projects,

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and these would all be, hopefully, maybe more useful.

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I think TreeSitter is pretty

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cool. I think there's a lot of directions that I could go, like,

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there's a plugin in NeoVim called NeoGen, which generates documentation.

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That would be cool. I've been playing with this. What else?

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Yeah, I mean, hopefully, next year, at next the Emacs conference,

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I could be presenting something more useful.

NOTE Does this work with any other paren-based editing packages?

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Next question. Does this work with any other paren-based editing packages?

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Not at all. Not at all. In fact, just because of the way the buffer was set up,

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how it's just, like, the illusion of a buffer, like, not even, like,

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the syntax parsing works correctly, because just because everything's, like,

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the way the grids are set up, like, you have, like,

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the other cells kind of interfering with the way that parse is.

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But the way it was architected, it's actually a really simple macro.

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There's a little macro called, like, run in buffer.

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You have, like, run in buffer, and then you put your elist code,

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and then it tries to create the illusion that it's actually running

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in a real buffer. So this macro kind of does all the configuration setup.

NOTE What kind of tool could use this idea?

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So, I mean, maybe with, like, more configuration settings,

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maybe something like that could have been done.

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So next question. What kind of tool could you use this idea?

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Oh, going back to the next project on your mind.

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This actually came up to my mind as, like, a graphical.

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So, in terms of, like, there's a lot of graphing tools, like ASCII.

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So, like, you type in some text representation, it generates an ASCII document.

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I think it would be really cool to have, like,

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an Emacs package that sort of works, like,

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those online really slick graph drawing tools.

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So, like, you can just press tab, and it draws a new box with an ASCII arrow,

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and then, like, it can create these diagrams really easy.

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I think that would be a really cool project.

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And so, something like that, obviously, like, you have different cells.

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And so, that's actually another thing I think would be cool to work on.

NOTE How did you go about designing the puzzles?

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So, designing puzzles. So, it's funny.

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If you listen to Zach Barth's talk about TS100,

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he goes into, like, you pretty just, like, you pretty just,

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it's just like you make up a puzzle you think could work,

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and chances are it does end up working.

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And that's how I roll, at least my custom puzzles in the game, just, like,

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come up with some random idea, think it probably should work,

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and then try to go implementing it. And usually, it's implementable.

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I mean, four by three boxes, you can do quite a bit.

NOTE What are your favorite changes in the upcoming Emacs 29?

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And I don't put any restrictions on the cells, like, TS100.

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What are your favorite changes in the upcoming Emacs 29?

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So, definitely TreeSitter is pretty cool.

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Just because, like, you have syntax, you have access to that.

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You can build syntax-aware extensions.

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So, like, I was just I was playing around with it, and it's pretty cool.

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You can just, like, get the syntax tree and search for syntax patterns.

NOTE Are there tools to add more puzzles?

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So, it's exciting to see what might be done with that.

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Are there tools to add more puzzles? So, there's not tools,

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but in the code itself, there's a file called azimbox puzzles.

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And it's pretty much just, like, you have a generator function.

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You configure it's just, like, you're pretty much defining a struct.

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So, I mean, if you're familiar with the Emax list,

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you can kind of define puzzles pretty easily.

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Define where your inputs are, generate a function to generate these inputs,

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and then a generator function to generate which outputs you want.

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So, it's pretty, I mean, code-wise, it's pretty self-contained.

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But yeah, maybe I could have done, like, a more streamlined job with that.

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Like, a binding to graph is? Oh, yeah, with the graph thing I was mentioning.

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So, that would also actually be pretty cool, too. But I was thinking more just,

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like, plain ASCII graphs. Just, like, you already have just, like, so,

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a tool I've seen recently is called Diagon.

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So, you basically type in, like, some really, like,

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a textual representation of the graph, like, A arrow B, B arrow C,

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and it generates, like, an ASCII diagram.

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So, something like that would be cool, like, so, like, you have, like,

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a grid of, like, little nodes, and control F maybe brings you to the next one,

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and maybe tab, maybe would create a new node with a new ASCII

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arrow to it. That would be a cool, that would be a really cool extension.

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But, yeah, I mean, obviously, graph is an amazing tool.

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So, a lot could be done with that as well.

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[Amin]: I think we have about, like, a minute or a minute and a half of live questions.

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We are opening the Q&A, this BB room for people to join.

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So, folks who want to do that are welcome to do so.

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And, yeah, after that, the stream will move on.

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But you can still come in this BB room or keep asking questions on the web.

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Okay. I think that's about all the time that we have on the stream.

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Thanks again, Zach, so much, and both for the Q&A and for your great talk,

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and see you all around. Thank you.

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Cheers.

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[Zach]: Thank you.

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You are currently the only person in this conference.