From Ratfactor · · 1m 40s
Tiny Programs and Languages
Tiny programs and languages prove small code can be powerful and approachable.
In brief
Tiny programs and languages prove small code can be powerful and approachable. Tiny programs and languages demonstrate that minimal code can be both functional and accessible. Originally reported by Ratfactor.
Tiny programs
Tiny programs are approachable and interesting when they do something useful in few lines.
25-line JavaScript library
Luke Jackson's ijk library has just 25 lines of code for DOM diffing.
46-byte Forth
Philippe Brochard created a 46-byte Forth program that fits on a business card.
“50b8 8e00 31d8 e8ff 0017 003c 0575 00ea 5000 3c00 7401 eb02 e8ee 0005 0588 eb47 b8e6 0200 d231 14cd e480 7580 c3f4”
Arthur Whitney's interpreter
Arthur Whitney wrote an array-based language interpreter in 122 lines of C.
kOS operating system
kOS is a 90 Kb bootable image with a GUI and window manager in 60 lines of C.
Lisp interpreter
William Byrd's Lisp interpreter fits on a single slide with 436 bytes of code.
“(define eval-expr (lambda (expr env) (pmatch expr [`,x (guard (symbol? x)) (env x)] [`(lambda (,x),body) (lambda (arg) (eval-expr body (lambda (y) (if (eq? x y) arg (env y)))))] [`(,rator,rand) ((eval-expr rator env) (eval-expr rand env))])))”
Ray tracer
A ray tracer fits on a business card with minimal code complexity.
Kolmogorov complexity
Kolmogorov complexity measures the minimum code length to produce a given output.
Small languages
Small languages like Forth, Lisp, and Tcl offer minimal syntax with high expressiveness.
Forth
Forth uses only space characters as syntax and is highly flexible.
Lisp
Lisp has small core syntax but enormous expressive power and flexibility.
Tcl
Tcl treats everything as a string and allows custom language construction.
Lua
Lua's core language fits on 27 pages of documentation.
JavaScript
JavaScript's core language is small with functions, arrays, and objects.
David Ungar
David Ungar argues simplicity trumps expressiveness in programming languages.
“It’s far better to make a system a little too simple so a person has to write extra stuff, even write it twice with a comment that says, 'Look over here,' than to have a system that acts in strange ways and nobody can understand why.”
Small scale benefits
Small things are approachable, manageable, and spark joy through simplicity.
The big picture
Tiny programs and languages demonstrate that minimal code can be both functional and accessible.
