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--- newsletters:2025-04 [2025/04/30 19:37] – osnr
+++ newsletters:2025-04 [2025/05/01 01:57] (current) – osnr
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-====== April 2025 newsletter (WIP) ======
+====== April 2025 newsletter ======
 We've had a funding shortfall recently -- we'd really appreciate it if you [[https://github.com/sponsors/FolkComputer|sponsor Folk on GitHub Sponsors]] if you can, so that we can keep doing this free and open work :-)
-We’ll be set up at Rhizome World on this Sunday, May 4 (at 161 Water Street in the Financial District). Feel free to say hello; we’ll also be running [[https://rhizome.itm.studio/m/a-folk-computer-workshop|a Folk Computer workshop there at noon.]]
+We’ll be setting up at [[https://rhizome.org/editorial/2025/apr/03/rhizome-world/|Rhizome World]] this Sunday, May 4 (at 161 Water Street in the Financial District). Feel free to say hello; we’ll also be running [[https://rhizome.itm.studio/m/a-folk-computer-workshop|a Folk Computer workshop there at noon.]]
 If you want to stop by the studio, our next Folk open house is **[[https://lu.ma/ydi03zax|in the afternoon on Saturday, May 31]], in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn.**
@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
 ==== Demos and applications ====
-  *
+  * (Andrés) I gave a small talk and workshop to [[https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinahuang96/|Christina Huang]]'s Learning Analytics class at NYU. I was so busy demoing that I didn't take any photos myself, but there was a photographer there from NYU's [[https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/programs/educational-communication-and-technology|Educational Communication and Technology]] Wireframe Newsletter — when I get those back I'll share them here.
 ==== General system improvements ====
-  * (Andrés) We merged (TODO (Andrés): merge all) [[https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertfielding/|Rob Fielding]]'s PR's to:
+  * (Andrés) We merged [[https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertfielding/|Rob Fielding]]'s PR's to:
     * Re-activate [[https://haiperspace.com/|Jacob Haip]]'s blob-detection code, introducing a spruced up demo program:
       * {{youtube>qiPEaeuK2yo?}}
       * This also means the laser capability is back! (Side note: I love the dog getting to play with the laser here ... it makes me wonder what a Folk system specifically for entertaining / training pets could look like!)
         * {{youtube>wgaSJ6B9uwc?}}
-    * Add `Wish $this draws text "example"` to the system, making text work like our general shape syntax:
+    * Add ''Wish $this draws text "example"'' to the system, making text work like our general shape syntax:
       * {{youtube>NFN6DbwPsF8?}}
     * Tools for creating subregions:
@@ Line 86: / Line 86: @@
 I've spent a lot of this month working on the [[newsletters/2025-03#page-quads|page quads / render-to-texture]] stuff that I started last month, which has produced huge performance improvements (almost more than everything else in folk2 combined). Really excited to get this merged now.
+Weird design choice for now: I got rid of the implicit parameter that passes screen resolution into every shader/pipeline -- you still need it a lot of the time, but you have to do it explicitly now. This is because pipelines can now be used both to draw to the screen and to draw to a writable image. It's also because we're really tight on push constant space for the glyph shader in particular (it's max 128 bytes and we now need to pass a 3x3 matrix into most shaders), and manually specifying and ordering all the push constants lets you save a bunch of padding space. Maybe this is fine, but we should also think about [[https://github.com/FolkComputer/folk/issues/106|the higher-level shader notation idea]] again as a layer on top?
+== /images debug page ==
 I added support for drawing text and images and AprilTags on the textures, which was hard to debug, so I added a [[https://github.com/FolkComputer/folk/blob/4f62dd2daa9a5abebd751c6c5b29f9403915cbdf/virtual-programs/web/images.folk|/images endpoint that shows all textures in memory]] (including placeholder image 0, font atlases, page textures, projected calibration board texture, other images):
@@ Line 94: / Line 98: @@
 (most writable image textures are square 1024x1024 by default, and then we just resample them when we project them onto the display, which is why they're weird and square in the debugger view here)
-Weird design choice for now: I got rid of the implicit parameter that passes screen resolution into every shader/pipeline -- you still need it a lot of the time, but you have to do it explicitly now. This is because pipelines can now be used both to draw to the screen and to draw to a writable image. It's also because we're really tight on push constant space for the glyph shader in particular (it's max 128 bytes and we now need to pass a 3x3 matrix into most shaders), and manually specifying and ordering all the push constants lets you save a bunch of padding space. Maybe this is fine, but we should also think about [[https://github.com/FolkComputer/folk/issues/106|the higher-level shader notation idea]] again as a layer on top?
 == Destructors and ForEach! ==
@@ Line 107: / Line 109: @@
 (instead of just timing out camera images after some fixed period of time, or doing it on match unmatch which is unsafe since it doesn't guarantee no concurrent accessors to the statement)
-This involved some changes to refcount behavior and some new constructs:
+This involved some changes to statement acquisition behavior and some new constructs:
-  * If a When matches a statement, the statement's refcount is incremented for the duration of the When block's execution, so the statement's destructor (if applicable) will not run until the When has terminated. This feels correct
+  * When a When matches a statement, the statement is now acquired for the duration of the When block's execution, so the statement's destructor (if applicable) will not run until the When has terminated. This feels like the correct behavior.
-  * Query!, which just returns a set of result statements, **does not acquire any of those statements.** **The destructor of any statement in the result set may run at any time once the Query! has returned.** So it'd be unsafe to access a camera image that you got from Query! without explicitly acquiring the owning statement first to make sure it sticks around
+  * But Query!, which returns a static set of result statements, **does not acquire any of those statements.** **So the destructor of any statement in the result set may run at any time once Query! has returned.** So it'd be unsafe to access a camera image that you got from Query! without explicitly acquiring the owning statement first to make sure it sticks around (and that it's still around).
   * So ForEach! has been added for both ergonomic and safety reasons: ForEach! is like Query!, but you pass it a code block as last arg; it iterates and binds each result statement and runs the code block. In other words, it's like a mix of Query! (imperative semantics, doesn't yield) and When! (acquires each matched statement, binds variables for you, safe to use terms in statement inside your code block)
     * <code>
@@ Line 134: / Line 136: @@
 === Memory leak ===
+Because I've been trying to run folk2 on the (RAM-constrained) gadget, I've been really wanting to fix the memory leaks in it. It's been tough. My hypothesis (from seeing Jim allocations get out of control and from manually inspecting the heap) is that it's mostly little Jim Tcl heap objects (Jim_Objs, mostly). But hard to trace causation beyond that point so far.
 <details>
@@ Line 139: / Line 143: @@
   - Address Sanitizer (new this month)
+    - (This has been really useful for finding more serious bugs, too -- I found some use-after-frees and stuff like that)
     - {{newsletters:6386e479-848f-4d65-a809-eef01649e267-1040-00001f35ba2c028e.png?400px}}
   - pprof (libtcmalloc) heap profiler
@@ Line 156: / Line 161: @@
 It's getting kind of ridiculous how many different execution modes we have for folk2:
-{{:newsletters:pasted:20250430-192041.png?400px}}
+{{:newsletters:pasted:20250430-192041.png?350px}}
 (it is a lot easier to do all this in folk2 than in folk1, though, because folk2 is all one big process and most of its kernel is statically compiled)
@@ Line 185: / Line 190: @@
 For now, I guess we'll try to merge folk2 without even the cache, just string reparsing every block, and then later see if some of these other approaches can be revived and can help further.
-==== Outreach and other systems ====
-  * TODO: Discord updates
 === Open house ===
@@ Line 195: / Line 196: @@
   * {{newsletters:20250427-ned-keyboard.jpg?0x300px}}{{newsletters:20250427-open-house-crowd.jpg?0x300px}}{{newsletters:20250427-yuwei-animation.jpg?0x300px}}
   * {{newsletters:img_9855.jpeg?0x300px}} {{newsletters:yuwei-cat.gif?0x300px}}
 === aci-d club visit ===
@@ Line 211: / Line 211: @@
 === Other visitors and interactions ===
-  * Andrés went to  Christina Huang's Learning Analytics class at NYU to demonstrate Folk, it was a fun and productive class:
+  * (Andrés) I went to  Christina Huang's Learning Analytics class at NYU to demonstrate Folk, it was a fun and productive class. I'll add pictures in this newsletter once they're published.
-    * TODO (Andrés): pictures
 ===== What we'll be up to in May =====
@@ Line 241: / Line 240: @@
 ==== Andrés ====
-  * Vox graphics
+  * I've been reading about "time-based media conservation" and stumbled on [[https://www.tbmworkshops.com/workshops/artwithaplug2020|this fun workshop called "Art With A Plug"]]
+  * I also really like NYU's Institute of Fine Arts' video [[https://vimeo.com/677750584|How to Become a Time-Based Media Conservator]]
+  * Fascinating paper on [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fiRjtGrQjQ|Curved origami with tunable stiffness
+]] — basically making small compliant mechanism machines using scoring and folding
+  * [[https://medium.com/swlh/a-bit-about-interface-builder-ceffaf484580|A Bit About Interface Builder]]
+  * [[https://www.behance.net/gabmd|Gabrielle Merite]] is making a lot of fascinating [[https://x.com/rsnous/status/1916912489301791027|post-Tufte data visualizations]]