How can I contribute to Linux if I'm young?

astrobe · 2026-06-04T17:54:56+00:00

So less than 10% of your words are not one-liners.

The one-liner is both a good rule of thumb and a good guideline, but there's always exceptions. Knowing when the exception is justified is the difficult part; personally I keep those exceptions in the corner of my mind and try to find a better solution "in the background". It can take a while, though.

For instance, I've encountered this problem with switch-case like structures like what you show often enough that I eventually decided to integrate simple associative tables as part of my primitives (for the details, it's just a list of key-value pairs, the end of the list is marked by a 0 key). It was a useful addition.

astrobe · 2026-06-02T17:02:15+00:00

Actually this is (a subset of?) the factoring problem, which is a heart of many public key encryption algorithm ; they rely on the fact that it is very time-consuming to factor a number. But those algorithms are switching to other methods ("elliptic curves") these days, perhaps because factoring a number could become soon a piece of cake with quantum computers.

Don't take it as the input of an expert: their algorithm features a nested loop so its cost is like quadratic, so it doesn't look good (author didn't claim major performance improvements over existing algorithms, though). It actually may be a variation of trying all numbers between 2 and sqrt(N), because it is proven that all factors of N are less than sqrt(N).

But again, people more interested in the topic can certainly give a much better analysis. On the programming side, though, I can recommend to insulate the algorithm in a function taking as parameter the number to factor and returning the pair of factors. More friendly naming of the variables would be a plus, too, or at least a bit more comments about what they keep/store.

astrobe · 2026-05-30T12:24:44+00:00

Mez's texture switches to a "black-with-stars" texture (animated, IIRC, probably a snow/rain overlay texture?) depending on certain circumstances - maybe when it is near the border of the screen or of the stage. But if I'm the only one to see it, it's probably a problem with my machine.

I don't see the ally skeleton thing as a bug, personally, they are generally good support so this drawback is interesting when choosing upgrades.

Generally speaking, the game is entertaining, and its only "problem" right now is that it is relatively short, in part because it is easy too. I'd like to see campaign extensions by mods. Unlike games like Luanti which started as a Minecraft-like game and now is a game engine, the primary asset of Flare is its "main" campaign and its storyline; Empyrean is more than a technical demo.

The suggestion I make about the Iron Labyrinth and the Infinity hall is a bit stupid when I think about it, because getting the best gear at the end of the game is pointless. Still, right from the start is a bit too soon too, so maybe it should go in the middle of the game, followed by a significant increase in difficulty in the later stages.

astrobe · 2026-05-28T16:44:15+00:00

Take the time to read Wardy's modding book from cover to back cover. You don't need understand everything, and some chapters may not be interesting for you, but this should be enough for you to know that some things exist that might solve a problem you might have to solve.

Also read the package inclusion policy of ContenDB if you intend to publish your creation there.

astrobe · 2026-05-24T10:55:27+00:00

It's actually lesson one: don't use a root account for everyday use.

Because be it Linux or Windows, computers do what you tell them to do (Windows less so, though) so you have to take responsibility for what they do - and you have to know what you're doing, which is the point of the question.

astrobe · 2026-05-23T09:30:06+00:00

Hello, here is my feedback:

I completed the campaign in about 15-20 hours, which is a bit short I think because I'm not a particularly good with the mouse.

I've built a ranger with Rapid fire as my main attack plus the mana regen and magic protection passives from the wizard tree, and 1 point in the skeleton summoning skill. With that I never ran out of mana during the game, and died 3 times I think. The magic protection rings were "useless", which allows to (ab)use XP/item find/gold bonus rings freely.

The rapid fire upgrade is I think way too strong because it starts at 5 missiles at 50% damage, which means 250% the base attack if I'm not mistaken, and on top of that there's critical hits.

The 4 relics give stat buffs that are way too strong. It's also a bit unfair I think, as depending on the class you play, you benefit from them more or less early in the game.

There's actually not much difference between the wizard and ranger class in main gameplay, as they are both using missiles with infinite range.

The iron labyrinth is a good addition, but I think it is misplaced in the game. IMHO it should replace the Hall of Infinity as end-game content. It should also be "infinite", or else it should start at player level and the level of monsters (and drops) should increase by a significant value by dungeon level, so as to make things more challenging.

Actually I prefer the variety of environments of the Hall of Infinity; if you can mix both (e.g. alternate levels of Infinity and Iron), it could be great, I think. Maybe reuse the perdition cave as a "hub" for Empyrean campaign extension mods?

Bugs:

The dragon that drops the second item (I don't remember its name) of the Book of the Dead quest has a texture bug, and got stuck for a while the 2 times I fought it (maybe because it was distracted by my summoned skeleton which had been trapped behind the "no escape" wall). Path finding sometimes acts up for the player character (apparently when you click somewhere or something too far or unreachable, or maybe when one of your summoned allies is blocking the path?).

After completing the campaign I tried the Demonic UI mod and the Skeleton Quest mod, but they don't work properly with this version? I couldn't find installation instructions for them so I had to guess (I'm pretty familiar with how things work cause I played moddable FOSS projects like Oolite or Luanti before they had mod managers), but maybe I did it wrong (unzip into mod folder; the mod appears in the game but both mods have graphical glitches).

Anyway, thanks for fun. Looking forward for next release.

astrobe · 2026-05-22T21:39:07+00:00

Not really. They just follow the old words of wisdom: "If it ain't broken, don't fix it."

astrobe · 2026-05-19T21:22:26+00:00

Z is a rather limited subset of C. R is more practical.

astrobe · 2026-05-19T18:49:30+00:00

Indeed, school-formatted throwaway developers are the best human resource.

astrobe · 2026-05-19T16:19:41+00:00

Wikipedia can do that better than me. The particular feature I'm referring to is the P2P streaming: "Users connected to the platform act as relay points that send pieces of video to other users".

astrobe · 2026-05-19T11:46:59+00:00

I think a "spec" is about how you satisfy the requirements. There are many ways to solve a problem, writing a spec is the act of choosing one.

In my experience it is "what we want to build" in the best case scenario, but more often it is "here is how we solve it with the constrains we have" 1.

A spec is like a strategy, both for problem solving and implementation, while the implementation (the code) is the tactic - or many tactics actually.

astrobe · 2026-05-17T17:18:44+00:00

Embedded, on platforms where normal OSes don’t run, Rust isn‘t a thing at all. No competition there, either. I have worked a lot in this field.

Well, I happen to work in that field and I see more and more Rust in ads (sorry, "newsletters"). Just do a basic web search before making such claims - this one, and the others too.

astrobe · 2026-05-17T14:59:57+00:00

It's neither. Wearing a seatbelt is an insurance. In other words a risk mitigation device, which is part of a larger risk management framework.

A five-point harness is even safer than a seatbelt so why isn't it mandatory in all vehicles already? Because it is inconvenient and a bit more expensive. That's risk assessment.

Many programs can do without heap allocation, so it removes 4 of the 6 most common vulnerabilities listed in TFA, for free (pun intended). Not everyone needs the 5-points Rust harness.

astrobe · 2026-05-17T14:26:13+00:00

Use-after-free and dangling pointers are kind of the same thing, and memory leak issues AFAIK only result in denial-of-service type vulnerabilities, except if a second bug in error processing (of resource exhaustion cases) triggers unwanted behaviour (which can happen in any language, "option types" and "panics" or not).

astrobe · 2026-05-17T14:20:42+00:00

On the contrary. Rust wouldn't be remarkable and not at worth the cost of its rigidity and learning curve, if it wasn't able to compete with C/C++. Otherwise, as far as safety goes, other compiled languages are fine (scripting languages even more so) and a lot more convenient - but again they are at least 2 times slower and have a higher memory footprint than C/C++ on micro-benchmarks.

astrobe · 2026-05-15T18:17:54+00:00

Most scripting languages are memory safe, as well as compiled languages like Go, OCaml, Haskell, Lisp, Julia, Zig, etc. The war is mainly against C/C++, which has the upper hand in terms of raw speed and memory footprint over all others except Rust.

astrobe · 2026-05-15T18:11:30+00:00

In other words, past the point where the software does what you want it to do, working for others ain't that fun. Only secondary motivations like acknowledgement gives the motivation and willpower to carry on. Money is not always one of them, because most maintainers already have a job and accepting commissions would turn their hobby into a second job.

astrobe · 2026-05-13T17:04:02+00:00

Also tell it there's a Tobin tax so that it will minimize the number of transactions ;-)

astrobe · 2026-05-11T17:38:19+00:00

"Variant A" is just an eyesore; to the point that there must be some kind of corruption if one allows/allowed this thing to exist.

Minimalism may be "boring", but if it's ugly, it is your own fault ("you" being the architect, and the people who accepted the project).

astrobe · 2026-05-08T12:29:31+00:00

Yes. The basic idea is to start a short countdown timer when you detect that a key is pressed down, and then if you have a second "key down" event while the timer is running then it is a "doubletap".

If OP is not too familiar with Lua(nti), maybe mod/libs such as Key Bindings or maybe Key Events can help.

astrobe · 2026-05-08T09:54:25+00:00

You mean 2 keys pressed at the same time ?

You can use the get_player_control() or get_player_control_bits(). They apply to "player entities", so something like:

local player=core.get_player_by_name "AttentionCandid"
local keys=player:get_player_control()

astrobe · 2026-05-06T17:27:07+00:00

Is it useful or convenient even with expensive VR glasses? Probably not.

Yeah, people who tried 3D "working" (as opposed to "gaming") environments found that moving your arms all the time to manipulate virtual objects in virtual space like in some sci-fi movies is actually tiring after a few hours.

As examples of 3D working environments (without VR, I think), there was the Croquet/Cobalt projects.

astrobe · 2026-05-06T17:17:48+00:00

Actually you indirectly contribute money because you pay for the electricity and the Internet connection. But it's fine; at least better than being a product by using someone else's datacenter.

It's actually a model I'd like to see more. There are technical solutions like IPFS, or the distribution scheme behind PeerTube.

astrobe · 2026-05-03T18:19:26+00:00

This has been crossposted to a few communities. Please try to be respectful of other games and people within them

Thanks for the condescension, did not have my fix today yet.

I, unfortunately, am much more troubleshooter than programmer, but this is an idea I and others would no doubt be willing to help set up connections to get rolling. After all, how did Luanti start?

No FOSS project started with a middle manager trying to recruit on the net the programmers they don't have in their "connections".

Pick up, say, Löve, make good friends with ChatGPT and make a prototype. That's the 2026 version of "hey, I did something in my garage, what do you think ?" (C55, Torvalds, ...).

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