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laurentlb

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A History of IDEs at Google

laurent.le-brun.eu
473 points·by laurentlb·2 months ago·316 comments

Demos of 2025 from the Demoscene

laurent.le-brun.eu
26 points·by laurentlb·4 months ago·3 comments

Creating a Programming Language Using Coding Agents on GitHub

dsyme.net
1 points·by laurentlb·5 months ago·0 comments

Making a game on a custom bytecode VM in 7 days and 3kB

laurent.le-brun.eu
108 points·by laurentlb·7 months ago·18 comments

Designing a video game for language learners

laurent.le-brun.eu
2 points·by laurentlb·9 months ago·0 comments

HiTex: A spam factory for AI-generated books

laurent.le-brun.eu
4 points·by laurentlb·10 months ago·0 comments

The Starlark Programming Language

starlark-lang.org
136 points·by laurentlb·2 years ago·121 comments

comments

laurentlb
·17 days ago·discuss
Note that it's also possible to review changes afterwards. Many (human) teams have been working like this.

I agree that many vibe-coders are likely to skip reviews completely, but it doesn't have to be like this.
laurentlb
·29 days ago·discuss
Note that there are no mp3 files at all. It's a player for module files (e.g. .mod, .xm, etc.)

If you'd like to download module files, https://modarchive.org is a good reference.
laurentlb
·29 days ago·discuss
You'll find it here: https://chiptune.app/?play=FwwaT5Rc

As mentioned in other comments, chiptune.app seems to be a better project and has been maintained for years (https://github.com/mmontag/chip-player-js).

Also available here: https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu...
laurentlb
·last month·discuss
I've worked 12 years at Google. When I was tech lead, I periodically checked Memegen and searched for my project name. I found it useful to get this feedback. Sometimes I converted the meme into a proper bug report; sometimes I responded to the meme with an explanation.

Not everyone will use Memegen in the same way. But quite often a high voted meme can be treated like a high voted bug report. It provides signal to the team.

Note that I worked on internal tooling. External facing teams have lots of other feedback channels, and they know that Googler's feedback is biased. So how the team responds to the feedback can be vary a lot.
laurentlb
·last month·discuss
Is there a way to set the default unit? I'd prefer to see the information per 100g by default (instead using random units).
laurentlb
·2 months ago·discuss
For security reasons, the VSCode marketplace is not accessible, but many (in the 3-digit range) external extensions have been imported. One technical limitation is that some extensions are not designed for the web (e.g. try to run local things).
laurentlb
·2 months ago·discuss
It's VSCode, so it's 90% similar to https://vscode.dev There are internal extensions, but they don't dramatically change the look and feel.

I think many VSCode users are not familiar with the Comments UI, but it's used in e.g. the "GitHub Pull Requests" extension. Apart from that, some changes in the list of directories/files (for performance reasons) and a redesigned SCM integration.
laurentlb
·2 months ago·discuss
As far as I remember, this "IDE in cr/" explanation was found afterwards.
laurentlb
·2 months ago·discuss
I'm not sure about the dates. At some point (2014?), the use of IntelliJ was discouraged in favor of Eclipse. One year later or so, the decision was reversed and the effort focused on IntelliJ (and Eclipse were considered deprecated).
laurentlb
·2 months ago·discuss
I can't check when Cider got started. I was probably wrong (it wasn't much used in my circles at that time), I'll update the post.
laurentlb
·2 months ago·discuss
Although the tool is internal, a lot of information about it is not confidential.

As the team had to collaborate with the VSCode team, we got clearance for sharing information about it. The screenshots in the article were posted publicly on GitHub (in vscode issues). You can also find screenshots in https://research.google/blog/smart-paste-for-context-aware-a...

More generally, a lot has been communicated on developer infrastructure at Google.
laurentlb
·2 months ago·discuss
I like the approach in Lingua Latina per se Illustrata (sometimes called the "natural method"). I've noticed that it was adapted for other languages too, but most of the adaptations seemed old and outdated.

Recently I was wondering if I should work on a modernization of the concept (using audio and a more interactive medium). If anyone has thoughts on this topic, I'd be happy to discuss more.
laurentlb
·3 months ago·discuss
There have been lots of discussions around AI in the demoscene. Revision limits how you can use AI (https://2026.revision-party.net/competitions/general-rules/), even if it's not always enforceable.

There's a lot of push back against AI-generated graphics and music. For code, it's more difficult to know. AI is used by some people to automate the boring tasks, so that they can focus more on the artistic side.
laurentlb
·6 months ago·discuss
My personal website + blog: https://laurent.le-brun.eu

Multiple of my blog posts have been shared here before
laurentlb
·7 months ago·discuss
There's no specific filter. The main effect is blending the previous frame with the current frame. When blending, I modify the coordinates and add some noise. This makes the graphics look less basic and it creates this noisy trail when things move.

The source code is here: https://github.com/laurentlb/shmup8/blob/main/src/shaders/sc...

Blending is on lines 241, 242.

I didn't try to get a specific 80s look, I just played with formulas.
laurentlb
·8 months ago·discuss
Interesting topic. I appreciate the effort that went into this, there are some good animations.

But I find this kind of presentation much harder to read than a classic blog post. It's difficult to skim through the text to see how far it goes (and the article structure is not apparent); instead, I was kind of forced to read the text sentence by sentence (since I was familiar with the topic, I wanted to skip over the basics).
laurentlb
·9 months ago·discuss
Very nice project! Thanks for making it open-source and very easy to use. I hope you'll find contributors and be able to get a nice collection of animations!

I'm starting a new project, I may have to use this tool in the next few months.
laurentlb
·9 months ago·discuss
What's the downside of open sourcing it?
laurentlb
·9 months ago·discuss
Each time I read this kind of feedback, I wonder if there should be a free, community driven, alternative to Duolingo.

- Content may be provided by contributors (like Duolingo did for many years)

- It could be supported by donations (I believe the costs can be kept low)

My feeling is that lots of problems with Duolingo are caused by monetization (and many things were better in Duolingo a few years ago).

I'm still not sure of how it should be designed and what we need exactly. One of the problems is also to get enough contributors. I'd be interested in hearing more thoughts on this.

As a hobby, I started building an alternative to the Duolingo Stories feature (https://lingostories.org), but it's still fairly limited.
laurentlb
·10 months ago·discuss
I'd rather have the choice to control the camera (the "smart" camera could be used only if I don't control it), because it didn't work well for me.

Nice game otherwise.