382 karma · joined June 24, 2018
For instance, #2 (<table>-based layouts) definitely shaped much of early-to-mid-2000s web design, and can be viewed as a precursor to flexbox/other modern layout engines.
Same with sIFR -- custom webfonts are totally taken for granted today largely because of "hacks" like this.
When I was a kid I was really into classic prog rock (i.e. Yes, Genesis, ELP, etc.) and was mesmerized by Bill Bruford’s playing and technique on “Close to the Edge”, which led me to this incarnation of King Crimson.
One song in particular that really stuck out to me was “Thela Hun Ginjeet”, which includes a recording of Adrian Belew recounting an experience being heckled on the street, but until I read the Wikipedia page for the album I had no idea it was secretly recorded by Fripp and wasn’t scripted (including the maniacal laugh at the end). It blew my mind that they were able to create this soundscape that turned a recording of a totally sane Belew into what I thought was a paranoid schizophrenic.
Each song on the album stands on its own, and it’s probably my favorite in King Crimson’s discography.
I actually never thought of it in the context of Id Software, that’s an interesting comparison!
I would like to note that we don’t maintain/support/promote the Oni package on AUR. Builds from scratch are mostly for “trial” or contribution purposes. We do try to help with build issues in the Discord, though!
I would also disagree with the idea that a light and fast program must be easy/quick to build. C++ is notorious for having huge resource/time requirements to compile, but the end result (assuming good code) can be faster than some C code! Consequently, it takes relatively little time to spin up a node interpreter but the resulting program is orders of magnitude slower.
Oni is written in OCaml, so naturally it requires the OCaml compiler to build. Those NPM packages aren’t JS — we just leverage the existing NPM ecosystem for our native code.
We do recognize that building from scratch is not ideal, which is why we provide prebuilt binaries for purchase. I can’t give an exact timeline, but we’ve discussed publishing public trial builds probably before the end of the year, which further reduces the need to build from scratch.
Feel free to ask any other questions in the Discord!
[0] https://reddit.com/r/onivim/comments/n05pqz/_/gw8hw8p/?conte...
I think Oni is in a hard place where it’s the primary source of income for Outrun Labs. Oni is open source in two senses
- the source is available online (technically doesn’t meet some definitions of open source, but the source is open)
- we MIT commits after 18 months.
In terms of contributors retaining rights to the product, we do have a bug bounty program where if you fix a bug with a PR, you get a license for free. Not quite what you mean I’m sure, but it’s essentially payment for contributions.
We definitely aren’t deliberately trying to undermine the OSD. The reality of open source software at the moment is that most of it is either created or sponsored by large companies who have a ton of money to throw at it. We are trying a new model of making money from open source software to allow us (well, Bryan) to work on Oni full time. We’re definitely open to suggestions, though!
Unfortunately none of the main contributors are designers. I think we end up with a very VSCode-similar look because in terms of UX that’s our main inspiration. We do diverge in some areas, though.
Debug functionality is on our radar and it will hopefully be in relatively soon!
I assume by FOMO you mean the increased license price as time goes on, but as far as I understand (that decision was made before me), the idea is that the product becomes more valuable over time as a result of more features being added. You can still buy a one time license as of right now.
As far as abandonment is concerned, I can let you know that hasn’t been discussed. Bryan recently went on his first vacation since working on Oni, but work has resumed since he returned.
Feel free to let me know if you have any other questions — the Discord is always open!
After that, I would recommend the new (beta) version of Real World OCaml — it gets a lot more in depth about more advanced language features: https://dev.realworldocaml.org/toc.html
- JSX. OCaml has infamously never had a great UI lib, even though the language parallels with many of the functional paradigms popularized by React. JSX is a great medium to bridge that gap.
- The syntax itself. A lot of the contributors to Revery have no OCaml background, but rather JS since it's often billed as an Electron alternative. Reason's familiar syntax opens the door to many people who would be turned off by OCaml's "obscure" (not my actual thoughts) syntax.
- The tooling. Since it's just an alternative syntax for OCaml, you get all the OCaml tooling for free, plus the Reason-specific tooling. I'm a huge fan of refmt, which is a tool that parses and formats Reason source files. Sure other langs have close-ish equivalents (i.e. clang-format), but refmt is much more opinionated, meaning you never have to worry about intricacies with your formatting.
I know this is a generalization, but I find it kind of egregious. Georgia is one of the only states left (AFAIK) where you can essentially attend an in-state college for free if you have a high enough GPA [0]. You can argue about the means by which that is achieved (the lottery), but as a current Tech student I know plenty of very talented students who wouldn't be able to attend college, let alone an engineering school, without these scholarship programs. I doubt that a state/government that truly was anti-technology or anti-"smart" would funnel what must be billions of dollars a year into academic scholarships.
[0]: https://www.gafutures.org/hope-state-aid-programs/hope-zell-...