Fizz – experimental language and runtime environment | Hacker News Reader

Fizz – experimental language and runtime environment

f1zz.org

39 pointsashitlerferad21 comments

Embarrassed question, but where is the code for this? I didn't see a github link or anything. Is it fast? These examples don't really mean much to me if they took several seconds to run, prolog can do most of this already, and its ridiculously fast.

hey (author here), so the code isn't available as I haven't decided to open source it or not yet. You are correct to point out that it's a LOT slower than more traditional Prolog due, in part, to a different architecture.

Prolog has better (simpler, more readable) and more uniform syntax too.

I don't see how yours is an improvement.

I have no stake in the language, but that's not exactly a claim backed up by any arguments.

Well but I bet you've read a lot of prolog and its familiar.

Also fizz is only 0.3 I believe. Syntax is an easy change to make that early.

It does mention ‘experimental’; I would not think the author is done or expects anyone to drop Prolog in favor of this just yet...

I didn't mean to offend you! It's an impressive project regardless and you're a blessing to the logic community just for putting it out there!

So I'm curious though, fizz seems to be a fairly forward-looking language. You're probably planning on gpu support or maybe something like verified drivers, eventually? I noticed the http example, and ffbn, etc.

Your Twitter profile is littered with like 80s scifi and stuff like that, so a limb I might venture is you appreciate the notion of what AI used to mean for humanity, as a more generalized tool for problem solving.

I'm very curious what you're up to!

I wasn't offended and it is a valid question :) And yes, I'm definitely into 80s stuff and GOFAI.

I do plan to have some GPU support (probably by supporting existing ML framework) at some point (sooner if there's demand for it). I also like to explore logical inferences on GPU (but I haven't given it much thought yet).

The webpage looks really good, and the description of fizz sounds great.

On the other hand, the name "fizz" is somewhat tonedeaf, reminding me of fizzbuzz. Fizz, the language, may overcome the name reuse on its own merits, if people like fizz well enough. The going may be a bit tough until then, however.

Fizz is a bit of a buzz kill.

Yea, but only a third of the time, give or take.

Well, the naming was supposed to evoke "a cocktail" and "things bubbling up" as that's part of the concept. You are not the only one to have given me some sort of grievance about it :-|

At the very least, they missed an opportunity by not having a buzz.fizz example on the home page :-)

The title is fairly generic so here's the description from their homepage:

> fizz is an experimental language and runtime environment for the exploration of cognitive architectures and combined Machine Learning (ML) and Machine Reasoning (MR) solutions. It is based primarily on symbolic programming and fuzzy formal logic and it features a distributed (eventually), concurrent, asynchronous and responsive inference engine.

i love the design of this site.

Yeah the design is really great. It's simple but still has enough color to have somethings stand out a bit.

Thanks. Can't take credit for it as it's heavily inspired by http://musicforprogramming.net/

yeah, dope aesthetic. responsive too.

Mostly readable on iPhone, just the example code is cut off and you cannot zoom or scroll right to view it.

To look at? Sure. To use?

- giving the letters low contrast colours might be all the rage, but it is a lot more straining to read than something with a decent contrast, especially with a thin font like this one

- the CSS uses pixel sizes, and the default zoom level makes it so tiny that it is practically unreadable on full HD without zooming in 200%

- The combination of a mono font and not using of different sizes, bolding, italics, etc gives each string of characters practically equal weight. The lack of visual weight means there is almost no visual help to guide the eye across the page.

- Similarly, a bit more line-height would give the individual lines a lot more room to breathe, making it much easier to read

it looks cool, is unique, is memorable, reminds me of when the internet was fun

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