Top all-time · #1143
Matt Keeter
Personal blog · mattkeeter.com · on HN as mkeeterprogramminggames
Matt Keeter's personal blog at mattkeeter.com covers programming and games. Since 2013, 62 different Hacker News readers have linked it 119 times, most often “Antimony – A fresh look at CAD software”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-08-23, and you can follow it by feed.
Most-linked posts?
- Antimony – A fresh look at CAD software5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2015-05-29
- Antimony – computer-aided design tool from the Lisp machine parallel universe5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2019-01-29
- Writing a SIGGRAPH paper (for fun)3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2020-08-22
- It Can Happen to You3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-03-02
- Packing Memory: It's Free Real Estate3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-03-25
- Fidget3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-01-08
- Gradients Are the New Intervals3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-05-14
- The Solid-State Register Allocator3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-10-04
- Panic at the Async Runtime Shutdown3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-08-03
- Program Synthesis with Z32 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-02-01
What Hacker News says?
Antimony [0] and libfive [1] also use custom geometry kernels. [0] http://www.mattkeeter.com/projects/antimony/3/ [1] https://libfive.com/
Comment linking /projects/antimony/3/
on “FreeCAD: A free and open source multiplatform 3D parametric modeler”Submitted It Can Happen to You as a story · 1683 points
HN discussionThis is really great, thank you for doing this. Tangentially, while browsing through your blog I found this: https://www.mattkeeter.com/projects/machined-pen/the_plan.jp... This illustrates beautifully an idea that's been rattling around in my head for a while: what if the process you went through to design this manufacturing plan was the user facing cad api? When I approach a "making" problem--whether it's carpentr…
Comment linking /projects/machined-pen/the_plan.jpg
on “Fidget”Submitted Fidget as a story · 556 points
HN discussionHi, this is my project :) I particularly love this corner of CS because there's something for everyone – data structures and algorithms, low-level performance work, compilers, rendering / computer graphics, UI/UX for design tools, GPGPU programming, and more! I'll be answering questions in the threads as I see them, but feel free to connect on social media ( https://mattkeeter.com/links/ ) or follow my blog's RSS fe…
Comment linking /atom.xml
on “Fidget”Submitted Antimony – A fresh look at CAD software as a story · 357 points
HN discussionHah, I actually wrote a similar constrain solver that uses Fidget's evaluation + differentiation! This blog post was getting too long, so I'm going to write it up separately, but in the meantime: demo: https://mattkeeter.com/projects/fidget/constraints source: https://github.com/mkeeter/fidget/blob/main/demos/constraint... docs on the solver: https://docs.rs/fidget/latest/fidget/solver/
Comment linking /projects/fidget/constraints
on “Fidget”Submitted From Oscilloscope to Wireshark: A UDP Story as a story · 298 points
HN discussionCoincidentally I was just reading this other wonderful post from the author https://www.mattkeeter.com/projects/constraints/
Comment linking /projects/constraints/
on “Fidget”Submitted Do not taunt happy fun branch predictor (2023) as a story · 283 points
HN discussionIt does not support STEP export, unfortunately, because STEP files use a completely different underlying representation. Most STEP files represent shapes as a set of surfaces (e.g. trimmed NURBS). These surfaces have to form a watertight manifold, which can be treated as a solid volume. To make this actually work, you need a kernel for boundary representations (b-reps), rather than Fidget's functional representation…
Comment linking /projects/foxtrot/
on “Fidget”Submitted Beating the Compiler as a story · 195 points
HN discussionAccording to [1] the prequel is found at [2]. 1. https://hachyderm.io/@mjk/112157472314396711 2. https://www.mattkeeter.com/blog/2024-03-25-packing/
Comment linking /blog/2024-03-25-packing/
on “Who killed the network switch? A Hubris Bug Story”Submitted Halfspace experimental IDE for solid modeling with distance fields as a story · 193 points
HN discussionThis looks like its direct ancestor by the same author a couple years earlier! Great work. http://www.mattkeeter.com/projects/kokopelli/
Comment linking /projects/kokopelli/
on “Antimony – A fresh look at CAD software”Submitted A multiplayer board game in Rust and WebAssembly as a story · 188 points
HN discussionI've been working on tools of this nature for about four years, though the only thing that's made it through mostly-unchanged is the geometry kernel. This grew out of my thesis work (2011-2013); in rough chronological order, here are a few documents from that time period: http://fab.cba.mit.edu/classes/S62.12/people/keeter.matt/ind... http://www.mattkeeter.com/projects/kokopelli/ http://www.mattkeeter.com/research/t…
Comment linking /research/siggraph_poster.pdf
on “Antimony – A fresh look at CAD software”Submitted Ao is a tool for programmatic computer-aided design using Scheme as a story · 148 points
HN discussionAntimony - https://mattkeeter.com/projects/antimony It's an open-source tool for computer-aided design, with a graph-based design flow and pervasive Python scripting.
Comment linking /projects/antimony
on “Ask HN: What are you working on and why is it awesome? Please include URL”Submitted Gradients Are the New Intervals as a story · 147 points
HN discussionHubris is not an academic exercise: it runs at the heart of every element of the Oxide rack (compute sled, switch, power shelf controller) -- and its design is informed by delivered utility above all else. Indeed -- and as Cliff elaborated in the blog -- REPLY_FAULT was something that he thought initially perhaps too aggressive, but it was our own experience in building, deploying, and (it must be said!) debugging t…
Comment linking /blog/2024-03-25-packing/
on “The server chose violence”Submitted 3D Rotation Design as a story · 147 points
HN discussionAdvent of Code is a huge amount of fun! One of my favorite problems from last year involved programming a robot to traverse an obstacle course ( https://adventofcode.com/2019/day/21 ). Interestingly, the space of potential programs was small enough (105 bits) that you could smash an SMT solver into it and solve for a correct, minimal program, given the shape of your obstacle course: https://www.mattkeeter.com/projec…
Comment linking /projects/synthesis/
on “Advent of Code 2020”Submitted XMODEM in 2022 as a story · 128 points
HN discussionVisual Programming also isn't just for "programming". The tool that Matt Keeter made, called Antimony, is a node -and- graphical interface for making 3d designs. https://www.mattkeeter.com/projects/antimony/3/ One really cool effect this tool has, is that it shows you the direct dependencies on geometries and how shapes interact with each other. So far, it brings me to 3 tools I use on a weekly basis that are node a…
Comment linking /projects/antimony/3/
on “Visual Programming Doesn’t Suck”Submitted Interactive constraint solving in Haskell as a story · 113 points
HN discussionI wrote a shader preview GUI using Zig, Neovim, and WebGPU (basically a desktop Shadertoy). It's named "Futureproof": https://www.mattkeeter.com/projects/futureproof/
Comment linking /projects/futureproof/
on “Zig in 30 Minutes”Submitted Constraint Solver (2015) as a story · 109 points
HN discussionNote that Matt Keeter has been at this for quite a while now, very generously sharing his efforts and research: https://www.mattkeeter.com/research/ In particular, his thesis is well-worth reading: https://www.mattkeeter.com/research/thesis.pdf
Comment linking /research/thesis.pdf
on “Halfspace experimental IDE for solid modeling with distance fields”Submitted The Prospero Challenge as a story · 106 points
HN discussion
