Josh On Design

Apparently my last post hit HackerNews and I didn’t know it. That’s what I get for not checking my server logs.

Allow me to present a simple thought experiment. Suppose we didn’t need to store our code as ASCII text on disk. Could we change the way we write – and more importantly read – symbolic code? Let’s assume we have a magic code editor which can read, edit, and write anything we can imagine. Furthermore, assume we have a magic compiler which can work with the same. What would the ideal code look like?

This is part 3 of a series on Amino, a JavaScript graphics library for OpenGL on the Raspberry PI. You can also read part 1 and part 2.

This is the second blog in a series about Amino, a Javascript OpenGL library for the Raspberry Pi. The first post is here.

I’ve been working on Amino, my graphics library, for several years now. I’ve ported it from pure Java to JavaScript, to a complex custom-language generator system (I was really into code-gen two years ago), and back to JS. It has accreted features and bloat. And yet, through all that time, even with blog posts and the goamino.org website, I don’t think anyone but me has ever used it. I had accepted this fact and continued tweaking it to meet my personal needs; satisfied that I was creating something that lets me build other useful things. Until earlier this year.

I’m happy to announce the release of Electron 0.3. While there are a few under the hood improvements, the big news is a *brand new user interface*. We’ve rewritten the UI from scratch using Angular JS. This will make Electron more stable and easier to improve in the future.

TinkerCad is a free web based CAD program. It runs entirely in the browser using WebGL, so you’ll probably want to use it with Chrome (I think Safari may work in Yosemite+). TinkerCad is meant for novice CAD users. So novice that you can know absolutely nothing about CAD and be able to make something after five minutes of their built in learning quests (tutorials). Then you an save your creation to their cloud or download it for 3D printing.

Now that OSCON is over I can get back to working on Electron. That means a new version is coming, and by far the biggest change will be a brand new user interface. I had posted an early preview here but that's now completely out of date. You see, I discovered a new framework.

Michio Kaku, the science popularizer and theoretical physicist, is always a wonderful speaker. I’ve greatly enjoyed his TED talks. In _Physics of the Impossible_ he takes on the many improbable technologies of science fiction to determine if they are in fact impossible. Surprisingly, few truly are. He divides technologies into three levels of impossible: likely today or in the next 20 years with existing science (ex: replicators), likely in the next hundred or so without violating any known laws of physics (shockingly, time travel is in this bunch), and the truly impossible without some new laws of physics. There are very few things in the last category. It’s an easy read and lots of fun.

This is day zero of my Month Of Writing

I'm finally back from OSCON, and what a trip it was. Friend of the show wxl came
with me to assist and experience the awesomeness that is OSCON. Over the
next few days I'll be posting about the three sessions we taught and many, many sessions we attended. A splendid time is guaranteed for all. To kick things off, here is the code from my Amino talk.

I’m happy to announce Electron 0.2. We’ve done a lot of work to improve the compiler and library tools. The biggest news is Windows and Linux support. Also, you don’t need to pre-install the regular Arduino IDE anymore. Electron will auto-download it’s own copy of the required toolchain. Here’s the details:

I’ve been using Node JS off and on for the past few years, ever since we used it in webOS, but I’ve really gotten to go deep recently. As part of my learning I’ve finally started digging into Streams, perhaps one of the coolest unknown features of Node.

I love the Arduino platform. I have official boards and lots of derivatives. I love how it makes hardware hacking so accessible. But there’s one thing I hate: the IDE. It’s ugly. It’s ancient. It has to go.

It's the fashionable thing to speculate on future Apple products. One idea that continues to get traction is the Apple TV, a complete TV set with integrated Apple-ly features. Supposedly to be announced this fall, after failing to appear at any event for the past three years, it will revolutionize up the TV market, cure global warming, and cause puppies and kittens to slide down rainbows in joy.

More Beta Testing Software

This is a new future tweeting system I'm working on. It will let me write a post, send it to my blog, then link the blog from twitter, all in the *future*!

The Web is amazing for answering questions. Suppose you want to answer a question like, "what does the .JPG file extension mean", then the answer is just an internet search away. Millions of answers. However, if you stray from the common path just a tiny bit things get hairy. What if you want to get a list of all file extensions? This is harder to find. Occasionally you might find a PDF listing them, but if you are asking for all file extensions then you probably want to do something with that list. This means you want the list in some computable form. A database or at least a JSON file. Now you are in the world of ‘public’ data. You are in a world of pain.

During SXSW this year I had the great fortune to see the keynote given by Stephen Wolfram. If you’ve not heard of him before, he’s the guy who created Mathematica, and more recently Wolfram Alpha, an online cloud brain. He’s an insanely smart guy with the huge ambition to change how we think.