blobby tables

tosh: Status Report #1


Jun 25 2015 • Filed under tosh

I’ve been talking about my secret project for a while now. It’s certainly a secret no longer. It’s time you got a proper update.

Here’s a screenshot I made a few months ago, for the homepage:

I used a camera to take a picture of my Retina screen. I’m so arty.

This is what I know:

A week ago I finally implemented compiling. Presssing ⌘⏎ compiles the code and runs it in phosphorus.

I put off implementing compiling for a long time, focusing instead on the code editor and parser. Those are the largest parts of the project and hardest to get right.

But I’m glad I did it, because now tosh is much more fun to work on. (Though now I get distracted making silly turtle art projects!)

There’s a lesson here about the virtues of tackling the hard part first vs. making a complete prototype. (One of the two is like the “tracer bullet” technique from The Pragmatic Programmer.) Either can be good, but what you really need is a fun prototype.

More soon…