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Metaphysical Developer
Personal blog · metaphysicaldeveloper.wordpress.comprogramming
Metaphysical Developer is a personal blog at metaphysicaldeveloper.wordpress.com about programming. Since 2009, 7 different Hacker News readers have linked it 37 times, most often “WebGL breaking into the real world”. The last post was in 2013, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (2) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this blog for hobby programming experiments: Minecraft command-block and gnuplot hacks, and a WebGL Pearl Boy demo. Comments cite these posts as examples, without judging the writing.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 2 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Thoughts on Software Development
Most-linked posts?
- WebGL breaking into the real world2 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2013-04-23
- Conjcraft: A Minecraft Mod implemented in Clojure2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2012-04-20
- Hacking a Gnuplot into Minecraft2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2011-08-02
What Hacker News says?
People have been doing some pretty amazing things with WebGL lately: http://metaphysicaldeveloper.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/webgl-...
Comment linking /2013/04/23/webgl-breaking-into-the-real-world/
on “Seriously.js”Submitted Idiomatic Clojure with LightTable as a story · 248 points
HN discussionSecond that. Coffeescript is really life changing. A very DSL friendly language, where beautiful code can rival python's[1] [1] http://metaphysicaldeveloper.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/354/
Comment linking /2011/03/31/354/
on “Rails 3.1 shipping with CoffeeScript”Submitted ClojureScript vs Coffeescript as a story · 74 points
HN discussionI've wrote about these ancient ways of great languages a while ago: http://metaphysicaldeveloper.wordpress.com/2009/05/02/closur...
Comment linking /2009/05/02/closures-collections-and-some-functional-programming/
on “Joel Spolsky: Can your programming language do this?”Submitted Hacking Minecraft into WebGL as a story · 52 points
HN discussionIt is also nice to see how much great work is going on WebGL these days[1]. Hopefully, tools like this will help even more create amazing things with it. [1] http://metaphysicaldeveloper.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/webgl-...
Comment linking /2013/04/23/webgl-breaking-into-the-real-world/
on “TraceGL: JavaScript code flow visualisation in WebGL”Submitted Conjcraft: A Minecraft Mod implemented in Clojure as a story · 26 points
HN discussionThat would be great. Here's a "graphics turtle": http://www.stuffaboutcode.com/2014/07/minecraft-fractal-tree... Here's Rust and LLVM in Minecraft command blocks: https://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/37dkg4/sbbm_scri... Here's someone hacking gnuplots into Minecraft worlds: https://metaphysicaldeveloper.wordpress.com/2011/07/31/hacki...
Comment linking /2011/07/31/hacking-a-gnuplot-into-minecraft/
on “Minecraft to run artificial intelligence experiments”Submitted Improving Ruby as a story · 15 points
HN discussionThat is pretty much about right. I wrote a bit about the implementation[1], and the discussion went over how to optimize this (including, but not limited to, using shaders to do the drawing and not relying on Three.js so much). [1] http://metaphysicaldeveloper.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/implem...
Comment linking /2011/12/20/implementing-minecraft-in-webgl/
on “MineCraftWebGL”Submitted Hacking a Gnuplot into Minecraft as a story · 7 points
HN discussionthis was on the frontpage already a while ago, cant find the HN discussion link but this was the linked content: http://metaphysicaldeveloper.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/webgl-... Its looks nice and all, but these kind of WebGL demos arent all that impressive anymore now that we have seen things like the unreal engine running in the browser. http://www.unrealengine.com/html5/ There isnt really alot you cannot do with W…
Comment linking /2013/04/23/webgl-breaking-into-the-real-world/
on “Pearl Boy WebGL Demo”Submitted High Level Concurrency with JRuby and Akka Actors as a story · 7 points
HN discussionThis was showcased along many other great WebGL demos a month ago: http://metaphysicaldeveloper.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/webgl-...
Comment linking /2013/04/23/webgl-breaking-into-the-real-world/
on “Pearl Boy WebGL Demo”Submitted Peter Norvig’s Spelling Corrector in 21 Lines of Coffeescript as a story · 5 points
HN discussionNo need for threads in JRuby. Just use actors and messages (and you can transform any object into an actor). I've wrote it about it here: http://metaphysicaldeveloper.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/high-l...
Comment linking /2010/12/16/high-level-concurrency-with-jruby-and-akka-actors/
on “Ruby concurrency explainined simply”Submitted The Issue with Static Typing as a story · 5 points
HN discussionI managed to create a mod where you mostly use plain text Clojure files: http://metaphysicaldeveloper.wordpress.com/2012/04/20/conjcr... Nonetheless the API is good news.
Comment linking /2012/04/20/conjcraft-a-minecraft-mod-implemented-in-clojure/
on “The Minecraft API Is Now On Github”Submitted WebGL breaking into the real world as a story · 3 points
HN discussionIt is really useful for making remote and encrypted dbs, not to mention that you can safely store any data on Amazon EC2, compute on it, and only the producers and the consumers of the input/output will ever know the contents. I've blogged about it when it first became possible, in 2009: http://metaphysicaldeveloper.wordpress.com/2009/11/30/you-ca...
Comment linking /2009/11/30/you-can-trust-your-data-to-the-cloud-in-theory/
on “Can Homomorphic Encryption be Practical?”Submitted WebGL breaking into the real world as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI usually prefer: foreach(x in list.reject(unusual_condition(_))) x2=perform_data_transformation(x); x3=perform_data_transformation(x2); I find collections and their functional methods are great for clear expression of intent[1] [1] http://metaphysicaldeveloper.wordpress.com/2009/05/02/closur...
Comment linking /2009/05/02/closures-collections-and-some-functional-programming/
on “What features of Java have been dropped in Scala?”Submitted ClojureScript vs Coffeescript as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThanks for pointing out the try method (it is important to note that it is avaible to anyone using Active Support, not only Rails apps). It is mildly different (syntax mostly). All of these are attempts to recreate the elvis operator tha Groovy[1] (nowadays present as the The Existential Operator in Coffescript[2]) have. For better chaining, the Maybe monad can be implemented in Ruby[3]. However they really shine on…
Comment linking /2010/10/31/rubyunderscore-a-bit-of-arc-and-scala-in-ruby/
on “If you gaze into nil, nil gazes also into you”Submitted RubyUnderscore: A bit of Arc and Scala in Ruby as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI agree that the idea is secondary, as it usually changes. I'd really recommend you read Paul Graham's essay to understand his arguments that ideas are secondary, that co-founders matter a lot, and why you should/ should not start a startup. As a getting started, you may found useful the summary I've crafted a while ago: http://metaphysicaldeveloper.wordpress.com/2010/04/30/scrapb... After delving into these ideas,…
Comment linking /2010/04/30/scrapbooking-startup-essays/
on “Ask HN: I really want to start a startup but I don't know what to do.”Submitted The Failure of Code Reuse as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThere is also this simple game using box2d in both Clojurescript[1] and Coffeescript[2], which can also help those starting with it. I wrote a little abut it[3]. [1] http://danielribeiro.github.com/ClojureCoffeeScriptGame/ [2] http://danielribeiro.github.com/ClojureCoffeeScriptGame/cloj... [3] http://metaphysicaldeveloper.wordpress.com/2011/08/28/clojur...
Comment linking /2011/08/28/clojurescript-vs-coffeescript/
on “Make a simple HTML5 game using Box2d in JavaScript”Submitted Navigating Git Branch History as a story · 2 points
HN discussion