miniblog.

I find it really interesting how some areas of tech are widely expected to improve radically (e.g. LLMs and smart home tech), others gradually (CPU speed, battery capacity) and others very slowly (e.g. compiler optimisations). Predicting the future is hard.

I'm having fun writing a simple type checker, but I'm learning firsthand why syntax-directed checking doesn't work. It prevents inference. My checker catches real bugs, but it can't handle cases like this: [1, 2].map(fun(x) { x + 1; }) I think I need bidirectional checking.

I'm still experimenting with UIs for live (sandboxed) evaluation of tests. I've realised that you really want to highlight the failing assertion, not just the failing test. Feedback welcome :)