GoKawiil
Tech News
A programmer has written a technical walkthrough explaining how to implement a simplified subset of the PostScript programming language. The guide covers tokenizing PostScript source code and building the operand and dictionary stacks that underpin the language's execution model, while skipping string handling and most error-handling for simplicity.
A new BASIC interpreter called Tiny Basic for Arduino has been released, designed to run on mid-range Arduino boards and microcontrollers. It lets users write, edit, and execute BASIC code directly on the hardware without an external compiler step.
Apple's iOS 27.2 update extends Dual Capture, which shows both front and rear camera views at once, to group FaceTime calls after previously limiting it to one-on-one calls. The update also adds support for third-party sign language interpreter apps and live captioning services within FaceTime, plus an Edge Light feature for iPhone Duo users.
GoKawiil suggests adjusting input sizes in micro benchmarks until they run for approximately 300 milliseconds. This duration balances precision, human perceptibility, and practical iteration speed, avoiding issues with fixed overheads or overly long tests. The approach aims to help developers intuitively assess performance improvements without relying on exact measurements.
Austin Z. Henley, a Microsoft engineer, built a minimalist Python interpreter written in C that fits within 1024 bytes of code, after an initial attempt at 512 bytes proved too small. The interpreter supports a limited subset of Python syntax—including def, colons, indentation, and parenthesis-free if statements—enough to run a FizzBuzz program, but skips CPython's full tokenizing, AST, and bytecode pipeline in favor of global variables and a fixed-length array.
Timekettle unveiled the W4 Plus, its newest pair of AI-powered interpreter earbuds, at IFA 2026. The earbuds let two people each wear one bud and converse naturally in different languages, with near-instant translation, adjustable speed, and a choice of voice output—no shared phone or app required.
The developer behind the Plush programming language rewrote its core Value type, switching from a Rust tagged enum to a packed 64-bit representation (similar to NaN-boxing). This change, part of an ongoing series optimizing the Plush interpreter and garbage collector, produced a measured 17% speedup in interpreter performance.
A developer released Thoreau BASIC, an interpreter compatible with GW-BASIC that can boot directly on bare-metal UEFI machines, with a Windows version also available. It supports classic BASIC constructs like DEF FN, GOSUB, error trapping, and graphics commands such as PSET, LINE, CIRCLE, and PAINT, working at native framebuffer resolution with 16-color EGA or 24-bit RGB.