The systems programming language that the co-creator of #WASM has been working on for over 20 years:
#Virgil is a programming language designed for building lightweight high-performance systems. Its design blends functional and object-oriented programming paradigms for expressiveness and performance. Virgil's compiler produces optimized, standalone native executables, WebAssembly modules, or JARs for the #JVM. For quick turnaround in testing and debugging, programs can also be run directly on a built-in interpreter. It is well-suited to writing small and fast programs with little or no dependencies, which makes it ideal for the lowest level of software systems. On native targets, it includes features that allow building systems that talk directly to #kernel, dynamically generate machine code, implement garbage collection, etc. It is currently being used for #vm and programming language research, in particular the development of a next-generation #WebAssembly virtual machine, Wizard.
A week ago was the 1st anniversary of this solo instance & more generally of my fulltime move to Mastodon. A good time for a more detailed intro, partially intended as CV thread (pinned to my profile) which I will add to over time (also to compensate the ongoing lack of a proper website)... Always open to consulting offers, commissions and/or suitable remote positions...
Hi, I'm Karsten 👋 — indy software engineer, researcher, #OpenSource author of hundreds of projects (since ~1999), computational/generative artist/designer, landscape photographer, lecturer, outdoor enthusiast, on the ND spectrum. Main interest in transdisplinary research, tool making, exploring techniques, projects & roles amplifying the creative, educational, expressive and inspirational potential of (personal) computation, code as material, combining this with generative techniques of all forms (quite different to what is now called and implied by "generative AI").
Much of my own practice & philosophy is about #BottomUpDesign, interconnectedness, simplicity and composability as key enablers of emergent effects (also in terms of workflow & tool/system design). Been adopting a round-robin approach to cross-pollinate my work & learning, spending periods going deep into various fields to build up and combine experience in (A-Z order): API design, audio/DSP, baremetal (mainly STM32), computer vision/image processing, compiler/DSL/VM impl, databases/linked data/query engines, data structures impl, dataviz, fabrication (3DP, CNC, knit, lasercut), file formats & protocols (as connective tissue), "fullstack" webdev (front/back/AWS), generative & evolutionary algorithms/art/design/aesthetics/music, geometry/graphics, parsers, renderers, simulation (agents/CFD/particles/physics), shaders, typography, UI/UX/IxD...
Since 2018 my main endeavor has been https://thi.ng/umbrella, a "jurassic" (as it's been called) monorepo of ~185 code libraries, addressing many of the above topics (plus ~150 examples to illustrate usage). More generally, for the past decade my OSS work has been focused on #TypeScript, #C, #Zig, #WebAssembly, #Clojure, #ClojureScript, #GLSL, #OpenCL, #Forth, #Houdini/#VEX. Earlier on, mainly Java (~15 years, since 1996).
Formative years in the deep end of the #Atari 8bit demoscene (Chip Special Software) & game dev (eg. The Brundles, 1993), B&W dark room lab (since age 10), music production/studio (from 1993-2003), studied media informatics, moved to London initially as web dev, game dev (Shockwave 3D, ActionScript), interaction designer, information architect. Branched out, more varied clients/roles/community for my growing collection of computational design tools, which I've been continously expanding/updating for the past 20+ years, and which have been the backbone of 99% of my work since ~2006 (and which helped countless artists/designers/students/studios/startups). Creator of thi.ng (since 2011), toxiclibs (2006-2013), both large-scale, multi-faceted library collections. Early contributor to Processing (2003-2005, pieces of core graphics API).
Worked on dozens of interactive installations/exhibitions, public spaces & mediafacades (own projects and many collabs, several award winning), large-scale print on-demand projects (>250k unique outputs), was instrumental in creating some of the first generative brand identity systems (incl. cloud infrastructure & asset management pipelines), collaborated with architects, artists, agencies, hardware engineers, had my work shown at major galleries/museums worldwide, taught 60+ workshops at universities, institutions and companies (mainly in EMEA). Was algorithm design lead at Nike's research group for 5 years, working on novel internal design tools, workflows, methods of make, product design (footwear & apparel) and team training. After 23 years in London, my family decided on a lifestyle change and so currently based in the beautiful Allgäu region in Southern Germany.
Just realizing that I never ended up posting this here, and I know it's Saturday but here we go anyway:
I'm actually looking for work!👀
I'm looking for #devrel (with a specialization in #devex, web standards and OS communities) or #fullstack eng roles (primarily #javascript but I dabble in half a dozen other languages, from Rust to Go to embedded C/C++ & happy to learn), have quite a bit of experience/interest in #webassembly, #cloudnative and can hold my own in #devops (e.g. the #RustFest infra used for the EuroRust live stream was hosted by us).
I am based in Tallinn, and looking exclusively for fully #remote (ideally seasoned async/flexible remote teams and I am happy to help building a great culture as well using my previous experience at Mozilla & other companies in the past 7 years).
Also open for part-time and/or contracting with the right people/product.
If you know someone would appreciate an intro, say hello @ https://flak.is
I’m really excited about the impending release of support for #Wasi Preview 2 and the component model into the Rust toolchain. #WebAssembly is about to get even more exciting.
WASI 0.2 is here ✨ the Component Model unlocks #webassembly's potential outside the browser, and brings with it a fundamentally different way to build for the #web and beyond.
#Wasm components are language-agnostic units of code, that use more secure interaction and communication methods, and unlock exciting potential for the future of composability and compatibility.
#WebR makes it possible to run #RStats code in the browser without the need for an R server to execute the code: the R interpreter runs directly on the user’s machine. WebR is a version of the statistical language R compiled for the browser and #NodeJS using #WebAssembly, via Emscripten.
Kotlin/Wasm is going to support #WebAssembly component model. This is going to change everything. Kotlin applications using seamlessly Rust or C/C++ librairies. In your browser, in the Cloud or on Edge devices. https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/KT-64569
This is huge. I’ve been bullish on RISC-V from the beginning but this is happening even faster than I expected. Between IT Sovereignty and geopolitics involving access to global supply chains, hyperspecialization of algorithms to hw, etc., it’s about to get really interesting.*
We’re one generation from the tech hacking culture of cyberpunk fiction.
HW heterogeneity will be mediated by LLVM and WebAssembly.
I'm very excited about the future of webassembly and wasi preview 2.0. I compiled my Rust/C++ crate femark into a wasi component, and used it to make an editor with live preview and syntax highlighting for Leptos #rust#leptos#wasi#web#webassembly
Learn about some early #WebAssembly history from one of the co-creators of #Wasm, Alon Zakai! Follow along how Alon explains how we came from Native Client to asm.js and then finally to WebAssembly, and explore some interesting historical and present day sidetracks on the way.
The #game jam co-organized by Dave Thompson, CTO at @spritelyinst, starts today and are an excellent opportunity to test-drive the #Spritely#Hoot project's #Guile to #WebAssembly facilities.
Get inspired by last year's jam, and join the 10-day event..
Onyx, a new programming language powered by WebAssembly (wasmer.io)
Learn about Onyx, a new imperative programming language that leverages WebAssembly and Wasmer for seamless cross-platform support