Nitrogen
03-08-2008, 04:42 PM
Greetings PGD! I haven't posted here in quite a while, but I have a new project to show, something I've been working on over the past few months, and I'm very pleased with where I've gotten with it.
It is an Esoteric Programming Language which wikipedia describes as a language which is a "test of the boundaries of computer programming language design, as a proof of concept, or as a joke". I'm pretty sure my language is about 90% joke and around 10% proof of concept. Let me explain:
In Machine Flow, all programming tasks are carried out by marbles. Yes, Marbles. They 'flow' around on rails, set on top a giant wooden table, carrying one variable of data around each. Each set of rails is connected to an input or output of an Operator - a little box which does something with the marbles (Add, Duplicate, Test, etc.). This concept has been explored before, under the name 'Dataflow', but never with these sort of graphics I think!
You may be thinking "WHY" at this point... Well, think of it as a piece of 'art'. An expression of creativity that needs no purpose other than to be enjoyed.
http://www.nitrogen.za.org/gallery/thumbs/MachineFlow2.jpg (http://www.nitrogen.za.org/gallery/MachineFlow2.jpg)
From a technical stand-point: The boxes use Lua script to perform their actions, and each Operator is described as a simple text file so the language is easily extendible.
All the graphics were painstakingly hand-drawn, except for the icons, which were used from free icon packs...
I've also included some demo projects, one of which uses Miller-Rabin theory to test if a number is prime or not.. it's quite a monster!
Go check it out now! Download Machine Flow (http://www.nitrogen.za.org/projectinfo.asp?id=38)
It is an Esoteric Programming Language which wikipedia describes as a language which is a "test of the boundaries of computer programming language design, as a proof of concept, or as a joke". I'm pretty sure my language is about 90% joke and around 10% proof of concept. Let me explain:
In Machine Flow, all programming tasks are carried out by marbles. Yes, Marbles. They 'flow' around on rails, set on top a giant wooden table, carrying one variable of data around each. Each set of rails is connected to an input or output of an Operator - a little box which does something with the marbles (Add, Duplicate, Test, etc.). This concept has been explored before, under the name 'Dataflow', but never with these sort of graphics I think!
You may be thinking "WHY" at this point... Well, think of it as a piece of 'art'. An expression of creativity that needs no purpose other than to be enjoyed.
http://www.nitrogen.za.org/gallery/thumbs/MachineFlow2.jpg (http://www.nitrogen.za.org/gallery/MachineFlow2.jpg)
From a technical stand-point: The boxes use Lua script to perform their actions, and each Operator is described as a simple text file so the language is easily extendible.
All the graphics were painstakingly hand-drawn, except for the icons, which were used from free icon packs...
I've also included some demo projects, one of which uses Miller-Rabin theory to test if a number is prime or not.. it's quite a monster!
Go check it out now! Download Machine Flow (http://www.nitrogen.za.org/projectinfo.asp?id=38)