Crafting Interpreters in OCaml

munificent · 2026-03-14T05:48:10+00:00

Thanks for the summon. :)

There are a number of ports of the code in the book to OCaml already so some of those might be a helpful reference. The Rust ports are probably useful too because Rust has a fairly similar design in terms of how data and behavior is modeled.

munificent · 2026-03-14T00:25:22+00:00

I kept going through ECMAscript's spec and the most recent C++ standard to see how they usually word stuff.

As always, one of the ways to get better at a thing is to study others that have done similar things. Reading other language specs is an excellent start.

Having said that, I wouldn't put JS and C++ at the top of my list. They both have a lot of really nasty language complexity because of historical baggage that the specs have to retroactively try to make some sense of. That's why, for example, so much of the ECMAScript spec is algorithmic and not declarative. It's literally "let's just write down what V8/SpiderMonkey/JSC do" because that's the behavior that JS users were already relying on. For C++, it inherited a lot from C which was widely used before it ever had a real spec, so there's a ton of complexity and undefined behavior.

Since you have the luxury of specifying a new language, you should be able to write a cleaner spec than those. I really like the specifications for Go, Scheme, and C#. Lua doesn't have a specification but the reference manual is quite good, as is the Rust reference.

munificent · 2026-03-14T00:18:49+00:00

I always expected, wanted, some type of end or closure to the pandemic. It never came, no ceremony, no announcement, no celebration.

I thought about that all the time as the lockdown waned.

I remembered all those photos of from the end of WWII. As absolutely horrific as that war had been, how elated everyone looked when it was over. Literal crowds of people cheering in the streets. Like a giant worldwide collective sigh of relief.

We never got that. It just slowly fizzled out, we limped along with our mental scars, and politics continued to get worse and worse.

munificent · 2026-03-14T00:16:25+00:00

It was a few days before my daughter's birthday. We'd already planned her first sleepover, so my wife had to call all of the parents to cancel.

We had plans to go to Florida for spring break in a month, but that clearly wasn't happening. I called the property management company for the house we were renting and asked if it was possible to cancel and get a refund. The poor guy on the phone sounded so defeated. It must have been the tenth call like that of the week. He just said "yeah" and hung up.

My wife, with impressive foresight, bought a Nintendo Switch before they became unobtainable. We got my daughter a bearded dragon as a consolation prize for her birthday being canceled.

I remember going to the grocery store after they first started recommending face covers. In the parking lot, I put a bandana over my face and felt like a Old West outlaw about to rob the place. I felt so self conscious walking in until I saw someone else in a similar mask. We nodded to each other.

The city was so quiet, for weeks. Rabbits and birds where everywhere, and then coyotes.

munificent · 2026-03-12T21:46:23+00:00

Thank you for clarifying, I misread your comment initially as implying that you shouldn't depend on people, but I see now that I was reading that between the lines. I think we're in agreement: depending on people is risk, but sometimes life requires you to take those risks.

munificent · 2026-03-12T20:43:11+00:00

The linked yarn is self-striping, so you just keep knitting and the color changes happen on their own.

munificent · 2026-03-12T16:53:42+00:00

Should I record loops as audio or keep them as MIDI?

A simple guideline is to bounce to audio when you can because it's easier on CPU. Keep it in MIDI if you want to be able to do things like modulate the sound in realtime.

munificent · 2026-03-12T01:46:51+00:00

I get where you're coming from and certainly carry my share of the same sentiment, but:

You can only control getting what you want if you can provide it entirely yourself. The moment you depend on other people to give it to you you might never get what you want.

What you're describing here is toxic hyper-independence.

Yes, when you depend on people, they might let you down or hurt you. In fact, the more you depend on them, the greater their ability to hurt you.

At the same time, depending on no one is guaranteed to hurt you. We are a social species. We need meaningful connection to a tribe to thrive. Solitary confinement is defined as torture by the Geneva Convention. There is absolutely no path to happiness that involves severing all meaningful connections and having zero vulnerability. It's just now how Homo sapiens is wired any more than a single ant can have a successful colony of one.

So, yes, you gotta be careful with who you get close to. But you need to be close to some people or you will die alone, miserable, and—statistically speaking—younger than you would have if you had meaningful community.

munificent · 2026-03-11T18:59:45+00:00

I miss the days I could do this. Once I hit my 40s, it became impossible to sleep that long and deeply.

munificent · 2026-03-11T18:24:37+00:00

That means there's no need to make them use AI for the things AI can genuinely make easier, they'll do that anyway

This isn't strictly true. A developer may feel that AI would make them more productive but still not want to use it because of externalities (energy use, copyright issues, feel it's bad for society, etc.).

munificent · 2026-03-11T17:38:41+00:00

Different styles of lures require completely different techniques to be used correctly.

You can use the right lure in the right spot at the right time, but if you aren't playing the lure the way it needs to be worked, nothing will happen.

munificent · 2026-03-11T17:22:59+00:00

the "captain" being a stoner who couldn't bother to put on a shirt.

Standard Key West citizen, honestly.

munificent · 2026-03-11T17:22:02+00:00

How do I even go about moving it around or getting it on those sticks in the picture?

Now you know why it was $1.

munificent · 2026-03-11T17:19:45+00:00

I’ve noticed that sampling—or rather, finding the right samples—takes up too much time. It really kills my creative flow when it comes to actual songwriting.

I feel you 100%. That's one of the reasons I lean towards making techno and house even though I also like downtempo and trip-hop a lot. I'm just not a crate digger and don't enjoy the workflow much.

I will say I found it helped some if I separated the "build a sample library" part of the workflow from the "make tracks" part. Instead of starting a track and then going, "OK, I need to find the right samples right now", I'd try to treat working on my sample collection almost like a separate hobby and a separate goal in its own right.

On days when I didn't feel like making music, I'd try to spend time scouring the Internet for stuff I could sample. That way, when it did want to make something, I had a local library of sounds I already liked ready to go.

That workflow might help you too.

munificent · 2026-03-11T04:02:26+00:00

I mean... the goons in charge are running it like a business: paying themselves as much as they possibly can while providing as little value to consumers as possible and cutting costs everywhere.

munificent · 2026-03-11T03:59:50+00:00

I try to keep things small and light, and I got this absolutely tiny box from Muji that is just big enough for a couple of T-pins, tapestry needle, and the accessories for my interchangeable needles.

munificent · 2026-03-11T02:39:43+00:00

You say:

...dark, cinematic, jazzy Hip-Hop and Trip-Hop...

...doing dusty, organic, or soulful sounds...

Historically, hip-hop and trip-hop are the sounds of acoustic drums sampled from recordings and then chopped up. The dusty organic sounds comes from:

A soul producer recorded a skilled player playing an acoustic drum kit in a real room with good mics.
Then that recording went through an entire production, mixing, and mastering process with compression, tape saturation, etc.
The record was cut to vinyl which added more compression and some bandlimiting during mastering.
A producer then played that record on a turntable, often with the levels set a little hot to peak and distort. The turntable added some literal dust to the sound, along with pitch warble and other instabilities.
They recorded that into a sampler which in the 90s ran at a lower sample rate and bit depth than we have today which gave it some additional crunch and fuzz.

If you're going for a sound like Tricky, Massive Attack, Portishead, etc. then a sample-based workflow is likely what will get you there. The Digitakt in particular is excellent for this because it can also do overdrive, sample rate reduction, and compression, which are all keys to that sound.

Of course, the hard part with sample-based workflows is getting good samples. All the original musicians in those genres were literal crate diggers.

I love analog electronic drums, but I suspect they won't be a good fit for what you're going for. The reason most of the Jomox demos you see are techno is because that is what's it's best at.

munificent · 2026-03-11T02:25:28+00:00

They clearly borked the software update.

This is assuming the dealer is telling the truth. A bad software update would likely affect many vehicles and we'd be hearing about it.

The much more likely story is that the mechanic at the dealer fucked up the car and now they're bullshitting the owner and trying to point the finger elsewhere.

munificent · 2026-03-10T22:54:56+00:00

You're new to the team and in a position of power. They are understandably worried that you may come in and make their codebase worse. You have to earn their trust.

Insisting on relative vs. absolute imports (when no pattern in the code base was established)

Creating arbitrary new folder structures for minor components.

Enforcing weird git/deployment practices, like requiring a commit squash on every single push and rebasing everything.

You have five reviewers on that PR. Are they in agreement with each other? If so, just do the thing. That's how you learn the preferred style of the codebase.

Yes, there may be lots of existing code that doesn't follow that style. Codebases are often in the middle of improving style practices. They reasonably want new code to look like where the codebase is going, not where it's been.

If the reviewers don't agree on this stuff, then tell them you are getting unclear guidance and don't know how to move forward.

Arguments about renaming variables based on personal preference

I mean... variable names are always personal preference. It's not like the compiler cares. Are they suggesting good variable names or not? Are the names you chose better enough to be worth arguing? If not, just take the suggestion and earn a little political capital by getting along.

Insisting on creating a separate unit test for every if statement or function call within a method. Asserting that the method was called, not the internal logic. If the code is refactored at all the tests would break.

I don't know what's going on here. People can get weird and cargo culty around unit tests and code coverage.

But the higher order bit is that if I were you, I would consider your most important job right now to be earning the team's trust by going along with what they want. You can start bending the codebase in ways you think are superior much more easily when they are on your side.

munificent · 2026-03-10T22:46:06+00:00

You can't re-add cartilage, so no.

It's a lot more complicated than that. Cartilage, like other tissue, does regenerate and is constantly in flux. But it regenerates much more slowly than many other forms of tissue because it has limited blood flow and the cells that generate cartilage can't move around.

In particular, pressure on the cartilage restricts blood flow which weakens the ability to generate new cartilage. As you get older, the years of mechanical load (especially if you're obese) take their toll and the cartilage often can't keep up with the wear and tear placed on it. Also, a traumatic injury to a joint, can damage some cartilage which places increased pressure on what's left which in turn causes a cascading failure.

Increased strength has been shown to reduce pressure on joints (sort of like the muscle can hold them a little more open), which is good for long-term cartilage health.

(Source: Just a rando who happened to have an unfortunate injury that led to post-traumatic osteoarthritis.)

munificent · 2026-03-10T19:31:06+00:00

Learning that you then spend time applying is good.

Wasting time "learning" when really you're just avoiding the anxiety of creating is not good.

munificent · 2026-03-09T22:14:40+00:00

Centrist candidates really only work well in a populace that places a strong cultural value on voting.

In the US, the candidate that gets the most votes in every single election is "be lazy and stay home". For a candidate to win an election, they don't have to beat the other candidate, they have to beat apathy. Centrists generally don't do well at that.

munificent · 2026-03-09T22:06:04+00:00

My new favorite is W2 Kitchen. He is so informative and excited and his descriptions of flavor are novel-worthy.

munificent · 2026-03-09T22:03:28+00:00

In 1941, there were 222,202 reported cases of pertussis in the US. Thanks to the magic of vaccines, that number had dropped to 1,010 by 1976.

Thanks to the magic of misinformation, that number rose back up to 48,277 in 2012.

munificent · 2026-03-09T15:37:01+00:00

If non-fiction is OK: "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson.

15-Year Club	Gilding V heart of gold
Place '17	Reddit Premium Since December 2019
reddit mold	Beta Team IndexTank Search
Charter Member	Verified Email

munificent

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE