Coding 2021-10-17

By Max Woerner Chase

Several corrections later, and I've successfully published a version of MOTR using a script. Next up, I should make sure it better explains what it's doing.

(The published version has some lines commented out, but it's not like this code needs to work for anyone else. Moreso than MOTR's whole "most of the code still lives in the configuration file" problem.)

I'm feeling a little iffy tonight, so I guess I'm not going to come up with much more to say. My big feeling on all of this is that it's nice to do this kind of sketch-then-retype flow. Lets me do the high-level design first, rough it in, then do a quick full rewrite to sand off any intense awkwardness.

It might be interesting if I could come up with some kind of "pseudo-English" in line with "pseudocode". If the various analogies hold, that'd make drafting prose, and possibly poetry, easier.

Maybe for prose, I should look into restricting myself to a subset of English and see how that feels. Or maybe I need to take my drafts, and work on developing some kind of higher-level abstraction of them, that exhibits sensible changes from draft to draft. Like maybe there's some kind of "higher-level language of prose" that's not satisfying to read if you're in the target audience of the finished product, but that makes it easier to reason about and change the narrative.

Unfortunately, as I say that, I realize that what I'm describing is not analogous to an artifact in a high-level language getting compiled, but an artifact in a formal language getting refined. I guess I should look more into advanced formal methods. This sounds crazy enough that I assume it could be mistaken for an attempt at dry humor, but I'm genuinely curious whether this concept could be made to work.

Anyway, I need to wrap up.

Good night.