an empty garden

ah, hello there! i am so glad you made it. welcome to my cybre·netic Garden of Things.

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...there are not very many Things here yet.

in fact, if you're reading this within a month or two of publication, there might not be any Things at all. a Garden that is empty of Things is a rather poor garden, wouldn't you say?

at the time of writing, the Garden is still an aspiration. i've planted some seeds, but as i write this, they are still nestled in the dark soil of nascency, beginning their slow and careful rousing as the contents of their protective shell-hulls come to life. though conditions are finally right for them to germinate, the long hibernation of winter still impedes the gentle stirring within their secretive d—

right, yes.

there will be more to see here soon.

expect to see project announcements, journal-style posts like this one, article-style posts in a more expositional style, and possibly other types of Things as inspiration strikes. the Garden will likely be an eclectic one, with quite a mix of different notions and styles weaving together in an ever-changing landscape.

despite its eccentricity, though, i can assure you that there will be Things.

but who is the Gardener who portends the belated blossoming of these Things?

the gardener

pleased to meet you. i am khr, also known as Ash to some of my professional contacts. i am, among other things, a programmer greatly concerned with the state of Computing, which i intend to elaborate upon at great length in future writing.

i am also, as of recently, independent.⁰

my former employer saw fit to thoughtlessly embrace a doomed notion with such conviction that i was driven to resign. i wrote a bit about the feelings involved in that decision already¹, and will probably provide a more detailed narrative on the events leading up to it in a future journal-post.

when i am not making reckless career decisions couched in flowery language, i also spend my time writing², illustrating, making music, table-top roleplaying, growing herbs and vegetables, camping, and many other things besides.

the garden

while i have little to offer now in the way of mature and blooming plants, i can, at least, offer a taste of what is to come in the future.

among the ideas i have already planted and begun to water, one may find the following concepts working their way from rumination to seedling software:

• a personal task management tool³, presented like an RPG quest tracker
• a simulation-driven voxel game
• a suite of compiler infrastructure providing a backbone for exploration of programming language design concepts
• a standards-conforming C compiler
• a general N-to-N foreign-function interface system for programming language interoperability
• a build system
• a FoundryVTT⁴ system for a homebrew sci-fi tabletop RPG
• a personal budgeting tool

some of these projects may sound quite ambitious, while others sound fairly mundane (and perhaps like unnecessary reinvention?). and, well, if you never hear of some of these again, you can be sure the bitter admission of hubris will be endlessly found on my tongue.

however, i hope to publish each of these projects in due time. journal-posts in the coming months may provide some context, and, i hope, some justification.

beyond these, i also have some ideas for article-posts that i would like to eventually take the time to write out and publish:

• The art of Toolmaking
• What is a filesystem, exactly?
• Language, metaphor, and the building blocks of communication
• Why you should use more FSMs
• What is a build system, exactly?
• Knowing when to quit

these will likely trickle out betwixt journal-posts and other Things i happen to publish. if my memory is exceedingly good (or if the aforementioned task management tool works as intended), i may even update this post with links as these come out.

if the words above remain lifeless and unlinked, you can be sure the bitter admission of hubris will be—

okay, okay.

the call to action

i am, as i said, independent now.

soon, i will be setting up a means by which people may donate to fund my independent efforts. without this support, much of what i hope to do will likely be fruitless. and what's the point of a garden with no fruits?

to receive new posts as they are published, you may subscribe to this website's RSS feed in your feed reader of choice.

other subscription methods (for example social media, e-mail) may become available in the coming months, but i have some more groundwork to lay first.

thank you for reading! i hope we may enjoy a long and fruitful author-reader relationship.