GoKawiil
Tech News
A programmer writes that despite AI tools changing the economics of professional coding, hand-writing code for personal projects like a Breakout clone or exploring type theory in Java remains enjoyable and valuable in its own right. The author distinguishes between work, where AI can now one-shot many tasks, and leisure programming, which they pursue purely for the satisfaction of problem-solving and learning.
A new web-based tool called lpviz offers an interactive visualizer for linear programming problems, running directly in a browser via JavaScript. Its accompanying documentation is accessible even without JavaScript enabled.
A developer has released Parin, an open-source 2D game engine written in the D programming language, positioning it between minimal libraries like raylib and full engines like Godot. It includes a pixel-perfect physics engine, dialogue system, tile map and animation tools, a basic UI library, and integrations with Box2D, Steamworks, ENet and microui, with support for Web, Windows, Linux and macOS, installable via DUB.
Folders is an esoteric programming language in which program logic is encoded entirely through the nesting and count of empty folders rather than text, with folder names ignored except for alphabetical sorting. Originally built for Windows, where empty folders consume no disk space, the project has an updated 2026 release and a public implementation on GitHub along with a browser-based emulator for non-Windows users.
The Institute of Computing for Climate Science (ICCS) is organizing a free event marking 70 years since Fortran's first manual was published, to be held at the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester. The program includes a keynote from Damian Rouson of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, lightning talks, breakout discussions, and an evening reception featuring a demonstration of the historic 'Baby' computer. Registration is open now and closes November 9, 2026, with both in-person and remote Zoom attendance options.
Lingua Franca is described as a reactor-oriented coordination language that lets developers define and compose reactive components without manually handling threads or message-passing middleware. It currently supports writing reactor logic in C, C++, Python, TypeScript, and Rust, while using its own model to manage timing and concurrency.
A commentator argues that Rust's growing adoption carries risks, pointing out that the Rust Foundation was founded by Amazon, Google, Huawei, Microsoft and Mozilla, and that a board seat costs $325,000 per year. The piece also criticizes the trend of rewriting existing, mature software projects in Rust purely for the sake of using the language.
A developer building typed configuration support for a Haskell clone of Redis documented how the work led them deep into Haskell's Kind system. The piece walks through the conceptual hierarchy from values to types to kinds, explaining how kinds classify types the way types classify values.
Epic Games has launched a redesigned version of its game launcher that the company says was built using AI, or "vibe coded." Epic claims the new launcher starts up 46% faster than Steam and offers a 30x faster library, along with new features like dedicated game pages, a unified downloads page, and collections for organizing titles. The launcher is in a preview/open beta phase, with some social and account management features still missing, and Epic advises Unreal developers and competitive Fortnite and Rocket League players to stick with the old version for now.
A 2024 project called Olympus introduces an esoteric programming language in which developers write code as prayers to seven Greek gods rather than issuing direct commands. Each deity has a distinct personality and requires a sufficient quantity of accurate epithets and polite supplication before it will execute a request, with Zeus described as having high 'ego' demanding excessive flattery. The grammar is built with a PEG parser (Peggy.JS) so that prayers read as natural, structured language while still functioning as precise syntax.
A developer created a complete implementation of RealWorld, the Medium-clone reference application used to benchmark full-stack frameworks, using only Lean 4, a functional language best known as a proof assistant. The project includes a server, database integration, and frontend rendering, and passes RealWorld's official API and website test suites. The frontend uses a library called datastar-lean for interactivity, and the full source code is published on GitHub.
A developer writing about AI-assisted coding argues that the non-deterministic nature of large language model output, long seen as a barrier to reliable software development, is not actually a problem. The author explains that code is simply one possible output among many valid paths to a correct result, and that LLMs function as actors within a system rather than as a replacement for precise, deterministic instructions.