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Lobsters Interview with Zdsmith

I had the pleasure of interviewing and befriending @zdsmith whose passions are very close to my heart. He explores the different forms of notation (Iverson, Naur), makes combinatory programming approachable, ported J to Janet, created an ergonomic notation for requirements gathering, designed his own shorthands, attended the Recurse center and much more. We talk about:tacit and combinatory programmingdomain modelinglisp vs. type systemsmanagement and motivationmusic and card gamesCould you please introduce yourself?I'm a programmer from New York City. I have a variety of interests, primarily writing systems, systems of notation and poetics. Within the realm of programming, my closest focus is combinatory programming. I do my personal programming in Janet or Lisp Flavored Erlang.Traditional card games, still played in a given village for hundreds of years, are my true love in life (email me if you like them!) Card games are both complete systems and social mediums, happening between people. They don't exist without people and help them interact. Games are culture, evolving like food, language or dress. Modern games are designed, which I have less interest in.How did you discover combinatorics?To clarify, combinatorics is the study of sort of combinations of things while combinatory programming is using combinators, which I focus on.One of the most salient features of array languages, especially J and APL is tacit programming (equivalent to point-free style in e.g. Haskell). Conor Hoekstra (codereport) was the first person (I'm aware of) to say "hold on a second, there's this whole realm of logic and mathematics called combinatoric logic. If we squint, these behaviors that we love so much in tacit programming are actually examples of combinators." I found this concept very compelling. In particular, it prompted me to wonder whether we could pull that behavior out of the array world so that it was no longer tacit, what it would look like in generic programming languages.Conor even interviewed you about this! How have you employed combinatory programming at work or your other pursuits/</strong>What distinguishes me, I think, from many folks enjoying this, is that I'm interested in how to apply it to the actual work of programming, professionally or as an amateur, solo or in an organization. I'm a programmer, you're a programmer, we write programs. I'm interested in this experience, the phenomenology of programming, how to make it easier, funner. Not only how to make it easier for myself to write programs, but to read other people's programs too. That's exactly the question I want to explore with combinators.Tacit programming is undoubtedly more terse; you type fewer characters. For an array language enthusiast, typing fewer characters is already the name of the game. But I want to extract it from that context, to explore whether they themselves make programs easier to read or write, instead of merely appreciating them for their theoretical beauty. They're fun, exciting, tickle your brain. But compare it to functional programming, which has been relatively successful in industry, because you write fewer bugs with clearer intent using map instead of for loops, using destructuring and construction rather than in place mutation. I've had the benefit and privilege of working in places with this approach. So I'm interested how combinatory programming lives or dies in a real-world environment.But more recently I've been doing more management. I did refactor a small function at work with this style, in TypeScript. The code owner, understandably, said "please don't do this". It was not a point-free codebase. Ultimately, these techniques are political or social questions. If a long-lived codebases gradually became functional over time, it's not because one engineer got really excited about Haskell and wrote functors and applicatives all over the place. There was actual a discussion that had to be made, with a social and political argument for why it was…
lobste.rs
Lobsters Interview with Zdsmith
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Lobste.rs
Multi-Core By Default

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via rfleury.com via aminom
Rfleury
Multi-Core By Default
On multi-core programming, not as a special-case technique, but as a new dimension in all code.
203 views
Lobste.rs
The critical window of shadow libraries (2024)

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via annas-archive.org via rikhuijzer
annas-archive.org
The critical window of shadow libraries
How can we claim to preserve our collections in perpetuity, when they are already approaching 1 PB?
191 views
Lobste.rs
Building a NTSC/VHS simulator (2020)

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via youtube.com via tngl
YouTube
Speakeasy JS – Building a NTSC/VHS simulator (James Halliday aka substack)
Psst... You've found it. This is the JavaScript meetup for mad science, hacking, and experiments. Hang out virtually on Friday at 4pm Pacific Time each week. https://speakeasyjs.com
185 views
Lobste.rs
Why I switched from HTMX to Datastar

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via everydaysuperpowers.dev via TeddyDD
everydaysuperpowers.dev
Why I switched from HTMX to Datastar
206 views
Lobste.rs
Programming in the Sun: A Year with the Daylight Computer

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via wickstrom.tech by owi
wickstrom.tech
Programming in the Sun: A Year with the Daylight Computer
206 views
Lobste.rs
Automated Lean Proofs for Every Type

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via galois.com via repl
lobste.rs
Automated Lean Proofs for Every Type
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256 views
Lobste.rs
What are you doing this weekend/

Feel free to tell what you plan on doing this weekend and even ask for help or feedback.Please keep in mind it’s more than OK to do nothing at all too!

via by caius
lobste.rs
What are you doing this weekend?
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200 views
Lobste.rs
A new breed of analyzers

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via daniel.haxx.se via Shorden
daniel.haxx.se
A new breed of analyzers
(See how I cleverly did not mention AI in the title!) You know we have seen more than our fair share of slop reports sent to the curl project so it seems only fair that I also write something about the state of AI when we get to enjoy some positive aspects…
315 views
Lobste.rs
A Conversation Between Richard Feldman (Roc Creator) and Andrew Kelley (Zig Creator)

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via youtube.com via rcalixte
YouTube
Zig Creator Andrew Kelley
Richard talks with Zig creator Andrew Kelley.

- Support Zig - https://ziglang.org/zsf
- Zig's "Writergate" - https://ziglang.org/download/0.15.1/release-notes.html#Writergate
- "What Color is Your Function?" by Robert Nystrom - https://journal.stuffwith…
202 views
Lobste.rs
How to check for overlapping intervals

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via zayenz.se by mzl
zayenz.se
How to check for overlapping intervals - zayenz.se
Personal website with research, publications, and blog
194 views
Lobste.rs
The Great Software Quality Collapse: How We Normalized Catastrophe

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via techtrenches.substack.com via freddyb
Substack
The Great Software Quality Collapse: How We Normalized Catastrophe
The Apple Calculator leaked 32GB of RAM.
214 views
Lobste.rs
A Year of Gentoo

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via arch.dog by gmem
lobste.rs
A Year of Gentoo
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211 views
Lobste.rs
A Retrospective Survey of 2024/2025 Open Source Supply Chain Compromises

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via words.filippo.io via Tenzer
words.filippo.io
A Retrospective Survey of 2024/2025 Open Source Supply Chain Compromises
Project compromises have common root causes we can mitigate: phishing, control handoff, and unsafe GitHub Actions triggers.
215 views
Lobste.rs
Mesh Shaders In The Current Year

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via supergoodcode.com via jado
Supergoodcode
Mesh Shaders In The Current Year
It Happened.
218 views
Lobste.rs
Notes on switching to Helix from vim

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via jvns.ca via equeue
Julia Evans
Notes on switching to Helix from vim
Hello! Earlier this summer I was talking to a friend about how much I love using fish, and how I love that I don’t have to configure it. They said that they feel the same way about the helix text editor, and so I decided to give it a try.
223 views
Lobste.rs
A major evolution of Apple Security Bounty, with the industry's top awards for the most advanced research

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via security.apple.com via freddyb
A major evolution of Apple Security Bounty, with the industry's top awards for the most advanced research - Apple Security Research
Today we’re announcing the next major chapter for Apple Security Bounty, featuring the industry’s highest rewards — up to $2 million and a maximum payout in excess of $5 million — expanded research categories, and a flag system for researchers to objectively…
221 views
Lobste.rs
Igalia, Servo, and the Sovereign Tech Fund

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via igalia.com via teymour
Igalia
Igalia, Servo, and the Sovereign Tech Fund | Igalia
Igalia is an open source consultancy specialised in the development of innovative projects and solutions. Our engineers have expertise in a wide range of technological areas, including browsers and client-side web technologies, graphics pipeline, compilers…
348 views
Lobste.rs
What are you reading this week?

Perhaps we may try to revive this genre of sharing book titles in order to find something out of usual interests/ Anything that you have in your reading or listening queue: tech, non-tech, pulp or snob.I'm planning to reread again Thinking Forth by Leo Brodie (he has published couple (mediocre) albums on Spotify BTW). Also Mastery by Robert Greene.In audiobooks Strange Things Happen by Stewart Copeland (The Police drummer and VGM composer)

via by vlnn
lobste.rs
What are you reading this week?
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221 views
Lobste.rs
Beyond the AI Hype: Guido van Rossum on Python’s Philosophy, Simplicity, and the Future of Programming

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via odbms.org via kngl
lobste.rs
Beyond the AI Hype: Guido van Rossum on Python’s Philosophy, Simplicity, and the Future of Programming
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214 views
2025/10/25 10:40:40
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