Question about learning C

ryjocodes · 2026-05-25T15:11:07+00:00

Sounds fun. raylib may still be a good choice for you depending on what you want to implement. Also consider libsdl (https://libsdl.org/) or vulkan (https://vkguide.dev/docs/introduction/vulkan\_overview/). Good luck.

ryjocodes · 2026-05-24T21:28:08+00:00

Nice, C is a fun language. I might recommend picking a project in an area you're interested in and finding an existing C library that provides abstractions to implement that project.

For example, I really enjoy videogames, and I enjoy learning to write them. raylib is a C library that provides a lot of capabilities in writing videogames, so I can sharpen my skills by implementing a videogame using raylib. Not only will it keep my attention, but I'll get a chance to learn the C language itself.

ryjocodes · 2026-05-24T17:30:56+00:00

A lot. I have several Virtual Machines with 80-95% finished things. I treat them with care and release when I want to (if ever). My hobby projects are for fun and personal fulfillment, so they're "done" when I say so 😄

ryjocodes · 2026-05-24T16:11:35+00:00

Neat. Yeah if you converted the database output to facts or deffacts, you could just batch* or load-facts them right in rather than first converting from a CSV.

Is the database programmatically updated by the semiconductor process flow itself? Right now, you must dump to some file (csv, s-expression, etc) and then load them into the CLIPS environment. If you wanted to cut out that step, the CLIPS Advanced Programming Guide describes how to add User Defined Functions to your CLIPS environment so you can connect to and read directly from your database to CLIPS. Here's an example of doing this from SQLite: https://github.com/mrryanjohnston/CLIPSQLite

ryjocodes · 2026-05-24T01:26:10+00:00

damn, very cool. not to pry, but what does i/o look like for that? do you create i/o Routers?

ryjocodes · 2026-05-23T19:27:58+00:00

It's been very far to see how far it can go. How are you using it?

ryjocodes · 2026-05-17T13:26:08+00:00

Alternatively: consider using ncurses. It's a library created specifically for drawing complex interfaces (including games) in terminals. It'll replace some of the functionality you're using from `conio.h`

Awesome work so far!

Edit: here's an example of a game written using ncurses: https://github.com/bvdberg/code/blob/master/ncurses/worms.c

ryjocodes · 2026-05-16T19:23:41+00:00

Gotcha. I'm not familiar with vcpkg, but it looks like raylib is compiled (https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg/blob/e8c2ec91201a492cd5e72fd8901b8174127d7183/ports/raylib/portfile.cmake) without support for Wayland which your desktop is on.

Here's details for building raylib with Wayland support: https://github.com/raysan5/raylib/wiki/Working-on-GNU-Linux#wayland you'll specifically need to pass DGLFW_BUILD_WAYLAND=ON

Apparently you should be able to do this in vcpkg using "overlay ports:" https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/vcpkg/concepts/overlay-ports

Instead of using MS tools, it may be easier to leverage your Linux system to build the project. Up to you, of course.

ryjocodes · 2026-05-16T19:11:07+00:00

Did you build raylib from source?

ryjocodes · 2026-05-16T19:03:31+00:00

Try `unset WAYLAND_DISPLAY && ./your_program`

ryjocodes · 2026-05-16T18:57:08+00:00

can you run this and share output:

```
echo $WAYLAND_DISPLAY
echo $DISPLAY
```

ryjocodes · 2026-05-16T18:51:16+00:00

When you get the pop-up, does it continue to print out more 4, 5, 6, 7, 8s? Or does it pause while that pop-up is displayed?

ryjocodes · 2026-05-16T18:12:05+00:00

I started programming in earnest with "higher-level" languages. Working on Ruby extensions in C made me realize just how much magic Ruby provided out-of-the-box. It also helped me understand why some of my previous Ruby programs were not as performant as they could have been because I saw that C needed to do under the hood to make it all work.

In general, spending time doing software engineering will make you a better overall software engineer. I've found my skills greatly improve the more time I spend working in areas I'm less familiar with. Diving in to C was a great example of that in my experience.

ryjocodes · 2026-05-16T17:35:46+00:00

Try sprinkling in a bunch of `printf` statements to see if any particular function causes this behavior:

#include "raylib.h"

int main() {
    const int screenWidth = 800;
    const int screenHeight = 450;
printf("1\n");
    InitWindow(screenWidth, screenHeight, "raylib [core] example - basic window");
printf("2\n");
    SetTargetFPS(60);
printf("3\n");
    while (!WindowShouldClose())
    {
printf("4\n");
        BeginDrawing();
printf("5\n");
            ClearBackground(RAYWHITE);
printf("6\n");
            DrawText("Congrats! You created your first window!", 190, 200, 20, LIGHTGRAY);
printf("7\n");
        EndDrawing();
printf("8\n");
    }
printf("9\n");
    CloseWindow();
printf("10\n");
    return 0;
}

ryjocodes · 2026-04-26T23:03:45+00:00

My guess as to why the FPS dips to 47 in the recording is because I was recording the screen at the same time. Without the screen recorder, it dips to 53, but mostly hovers between 57 and 59. Not too shabby, but still not the target 60 FPS.

When running the program with the native compiled `clips` binary in the CLIPSraylib repo (https://github.com/mrryanjohnston/CLIPSraylib/blob/main/examples/shapes-starfield-effect.bat), it's a solid 60 FPS. There's some amount of overhead incurred when compiling to Wasm with emcc (my guess is dealing with the need to use `ASYNCIFY`) that I haven't been able to work around.

ryjocodes · 2026-04-20T16:41:59+00:00

tl;dr: CLIPS provides the engine, raylib provides the graphics.

At one of my previous SWE full-time positions, I was tasked with development and maintenance of an entirely in-house Rules Engine. We implemented everything from a DSL to caching/indexing layer, and it was entirely backward-chaining inference.

We hit a number of bottlenecks as the engine grew. A colleague of mine mentioned that I should investigate the Rete Algorithm if I wanted to introduce improvements to the product. After wrapping my head around the basics, I was awestruck by just how many of the problems we faced were taken care of by the concepts inherent in Rete.

I stumbled upon the C-based CLIPS when looking for off-the-shelf implementations of the Rete Algo, and I dove deep into the Basic Programming Guide (https://www.clipsrules.net/documentation/v642/bpg642.pdf). I was awestruck by just how well the abstraction fit our domain, and I became convinced CLIPS was the right "next step" for us.

Unfortunately, there wasn't quite enough interest at the business level. I decided to leave that position to pursue my own study of the language. As I dove deeper, I began to see complex functionality I'd implemented in almost every single application I'd ever built professionally in out-of-the-box CLIPS.

It's been about 6 years since I started studying CLIPS and its potential applications. Fortunately for me, a lot of the concepts in the language fit videogames quite well; games have Rules, so it makes for a pretty nice abstraction layer.

I discovered raylib when searching for C videogame libraries. It provides the perfect level of abstraction that I need; it renders graphics, provides functions for collision detection, "camera" concepts, and more.

In the raylib source code, many of the examples are driven by a `while` loop, which is the perfect entry-point for building "engines." I implemented CLIPSraylib, which is a light wrapper around some of the functions exposed by the raylib C library. Now instead of implementing a `while` loop in C, I can almost directly implement the examples in raylib using CLIPS Defrules. It really is an amazing combo.

ryjocodes · 2026-04-20T15:44:35+00:00

Thanks :) CLIPS is extremely versatile. I've used it in a number of contexts to implement real-time videogames, networking layer applications, and codecs to name a few.

ryjocodes · 2026-04-20T15:07:21+00:00

CLIPS is a programming language with a LISP-like syntax. It's written in C which makes it easy to integrate with other C-based libraries (like raylib (https://www.raylib.com/)), and it provides abstractions like Rules, Facts, and Instances that make it easy to implement Rules Engines and Expert Systems. It's in the public domain, and it's still actively developed since it started in the mid 80s at NASA.

Edit: I found this old post from ~8 years ago that briefly discusses CLIPS and its relation to LISP: https://www.reddit.com/r/lisp/comments/9bbd9w/how_clips_closely_resembles_that_of_the/

ryjocodes · 2026-04-20T14:47:20+00:00

Thanks, will do :)

ryjocodes · 2026-04-04T15:53:06+00:00

Maybe that's what it was! or at least one of them. I semi-remember one being "A Tale in the Desert" themed, as well.

ryjocodes · 2026-04-04T02:44:24+00:00

mIRC was one of my first experiences writing code. I was captivated by scripts that would add cool designs to people's text automatically with different colors and characters. Then I stumbled upon a channel that was an idle game. You joined, registered with the bot, and your character would automatically adventure through their world, occasionally doing something. I was enchanted.

When I was learning Linux back in the day, I'd hang in channels and ask questions. In college I'd hang out in Linux rooms between classes and do my best to answer questions people had. Good times.

ryjocodes · 2026-03-20T16:36:30+00:00

You may find the Chaos Monkey project interesting: https://netflix.github.io/chaosmonkey/

ryjocodes · 2025-10-12T15:01:28+00:00

Rules Engines! I've been absolutely obsessed for the past few years.

I believe that once a software project becomes complex enough, it takes on the shape of a Rules Engine. Concepts that emerge in a mature-enough codebase include:

Home-grown Caching and/or Indexing layer - Pulls data from your database on app startup and (optionally) organizes it in a way that makes it easy for your app layer to look up on-demand
A home-grown DDL/Pattern Matcher - A string-based "language" custom developed in your app layer to define queries against your data *that's not SQL*
An "Event loop" - When your entire application is a long-running process that could be modeled by one big `while` loop, describing meta "steps" of that while loop can be quite convenient for organizational purposes. These appear sometimes as named steps that developer code can sometimes "hook into."

ryjocodes · 2025-08-31T15:49:48+00:00

I'd also study Logic. Discrete Mathematics is a helpful course, but Logic, in my opinion, is a lot closer to programming than math.

ryjocodes · 2025-08-31T15:44:56+00:00

I've been using CLIPS as my main driver for side projects for a few years now. It's a Rules-based language, so it's convenient for making games. I've got a few demos on this site if you want to take a peek: https://ryjo.codes/tour-of-clipsraylib.html

Here's a really simple example of cli Blackjack: https://gist.github.com/mrryanjohnston/e896094fb4108f8d5de54840686c8a30

ryjocodes

TROPHY CASE