▲I made a programming language with M&Ms(mufeedvh.com)
63 points by tosh 12 hours ago | 10 comments
▲mufeedvh 8 hours ago
Author of this silly project here!

Sharing a bit of backstory on why I decided to work on this; Firstly, “for fun” but primarily because I felt like I started losing the childlike wonder/whimsy I once had with programming.

So I started this new hobby where I ask myself “can I hack on this?” upon getting/seeing something.

For instance, I got this new Aula F75 keyboard (really good keyboard for the price btw, it sounds good too!) and it only has dedicated control software for Windows. So I downloaded the driver files, software executable, and manual sheet and reverse engineered the full protocol/packets and rebuilt it for my Mac. Then played snake with the backlights. Fun.

Anywho, happy to see my blog on the front page. Would love to hear if anyones going through something similar or working on silly little projects! :)

▲AdieuToLogic 4 hours ago
Great post, thanks for sharing it!

When I saw the title, I thought of Lambda Calculus[0] and SKI combinators[1]. Given that there are "only six useful colors", I wonder if M&Ms could be used to implement them.

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda_calculus

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SKI_combinator_calculus

▲mufeedvh 1 hour ago
Funny you mention that, because yes, a combinator-style encoding is probably a cleaner fit for the “only six colors constraint than my stack machine. I hacked together a tiny SKI-flavored M&M reducer as a proof of concept: B=S, G=K, R=I, Y=(, O=), and N... is a free atom, so `B G G NNN` reduces to `a2`.

Gist: https://gist.github.com/mufeedvh/db930a423fdce8c1d8e495c7a3f...

▲berlinquin 5 hours ago
Fun project! I had a similar project a while back, but my medium of choice was the Uno card game. I called it UnoScript [1] and it had similar mechanisms as color was an important factor. I also ended with a stack as the main part of the language, where different colors/combinations of cards could read from/modify the stack. Interesting how similar constraints can lead to some similar design choices!

[1](https://github.com/berlinquin/UnoScript)

▲pkaral 2 hours ago
This makes the world a better place. I got a little oxytocin hit just from the thought that somewhere on this world, someone is working on this problem. Now I'll be kinder to old ladies and give those poor puppies a pass.
▲chocochunks 8 hours ago
Does this work with real candy?
▲mufeedvh 5 hours ago
Yes! Just make sure to take a photo on a plain white surface is all.

With:

  uv run mnm decompile path/to/photo.png --mode photo
▲bronlund 10 hours ago
It’s funny until one guy spills his bag of M&M’s and accidentally deletes the production database.
▲ramon156 7 hours ago
Wanted to fix this bug but I ran out of green M&M's
▲amelius 8 hours ago
What color is your function?
▲spaqin 4 hours ago
That's one language that doesn't need an external IDE for syntax highlighting.
▲ 6 hours ago
▲swaraj 2 hours ago
This is what HN is all about
▲bigstrat2003 8 hours ago
It's all fun and games until some fat bastard like me decides he wants a snack. Incidentally, which flavor? Asking for a friend.
▲filozopdasha 5 hours ago
it actually sounds like a fun idea, but i have one question. do you think a lightweight CNN trained on synthetic candy layouts would outperform the deterministic decoder for messy real world photos?
▲mufeedvh 1 hour ago
Yes, for messy real-world photos a lightweight CNN would probably outperform the deterministic decoder, but I’d still use it in a hybrid pipeline with classic CV for blob detection and deterministic logic for reconstructing the actual program.
▲nathaah3 59 minutes ago
this is so cool!
▲mufeedvh 32 minutes ago
thank you! :)
▲owyn 10 hours ago
This is AI slop but mildly amusing. Brainfuck did it first.
▲ramon156 7 hours ago
Which part made you conclude there's AI involved?
▲owyn 4 hours ago
the bold section headers and bullet points. but who cares. i don't.
▲306bobby 3 hours ago
I literally write like the article on similar write ups, where do you think the AI's learned to write this way from.

I really don't get the AI vibes from the actual writing of it

▲avatardeejay 6 hours ago
Am I allowed to use the term psychopath in the most loving, even inspired, way?
▲dang 5 hours ago
Psychopath implies lack of empathy so I don't think that's quite the word you want. You could maybe repurpose "psychotic" though!
▲phyzix5761 3 hours ago
Maybe lack of M&Mpathy?
▲47282847 5 hours ago
“ As it turned out, there is nothing special about psychopaths when it comes to understanding or feeling empathy with others. ”

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fulfillment-at-any-a...

But maybe it is like so often more about the contradictory definitions of “empathy”, and capability vs. willingness.

▲dang 37 minutes ago
That's interesting! But confusing as well. The test they reference (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy_Checklist) includes lack of empathy. Are they saying that this criterion could be dropped from the test with no effect on the classification?
▲efilife 1 hour ago
How I understand the article, is that they understand why others act in certain ways, they know the mechanism of empathy, but nothing here confirms that they are empathetic themselves. I think this article's conclusion is misleading.