• by bloopernova on 9/12/2021, 12:09:22 PM

    This is really cool!

    I could imagine something like this but for software/infrastructure architecture, where it would impose a formality/standard of language that would be useful for exchanging ideas, especially in earlier stages of remote collaboration.

    This also works really well with the box/tree description I give to people who are new to computer science or systems administration, and looking to understand more. Basically, it's useful to think of stuff in computers as both a series of boxes within each other, and as a tree with a base and branches. Folders start with a big box that contains smaller boxes as you `cd` into other folders, but they're also a tree because you start at the root and travel along branches as you cd.

    I wonder if something like this can be used to model the structure of technical documentation and therefore test its validity.

  • by throwanem on 9/12/2021, 1:54:48 AM

    Reminds me of Gay Deceiver's organization system from The Number of the Beast - I've always wanted to implement something like that, but I lacked the skill when I had the time, and now (maybe) have the skill but (certainly) lack the time. Well done!

  • by d0mine on 9/12/2021, 9:25:00 AM

    Interesting human-readable DSL for specifying a relative location of near-by things with corresponding auto-generated "text visual art" diagrams.

    In general, plantuml + Org Babel can be used to create diagrams in Emacs https://plantuml.com/zh/emacs

  • by throwaway81523 on 9/12/2021, 3:13:04 AM

    This looks interesting. Might be worth looking at older systems like pic and graphviz for inspiration. One gripe if the author is here: the chosen font and colors are near unreadable. Thank heavens for reader mode.

  • by edlinfan on 9/12/2021, 9:02:26 AM

    Was this inspired by the classic 1970s Lisp demonstration SHRDLU?

    https://hci.stanford.edu/winograd/shrdlu/

  • by throwaway81523 on 9/12/2021, 5:57:08 AM

    Hmm, I tried to post a comment earlier: did comments get erased from here? Anyway, this looks neat, and it might be worth looking at older drawing tools like Pic and GraphViz for inspiration.

  • by senkora on 9/12/2021, 3:59:09 AM

    Seems somewhat similar to how Inform 7 handles rooms.

  • by hnrj95 on 9/12/2021, 3:19:00 AM

    really cool. it’s great to see how active emacs dev has been, recently

  • by hankmander on 9/12/2021, 11:09:14 AM

    Super cool! Visualizing org mode is something I don't think we can get enough of. Keep it up!

  • by pwrplus1 on 9/12/2021, 7:52:24 AM

    A bit of a nitpick but the box drawing characters aren't ASCII.

  • by agumonkey on 9/12/2021, 1:09:09 PM

    bravo, super fun and impressive work.