This repository collects writings by Chris Pressey, whether those writings are contained in this repository, or exist elsewhere (and are merely linked to from here). For more information, see below.
- link: Retrospective on Language Design
- publish-date: Jul 2010
- subjects: programming languages, esolang
- link: Programming Languages as an Artistic Medium
- publish-date: Apr 2013
- subjects: programming languages, art
- link: The Aesthetics of Esolangs
- publish-date: Jun 2013
- subjects: programming languages, aesthetics
- link: A Basic Theory of Video Games
- publish-date: May 2017
- subjects: video games, formal theory
- link: Blurry Memories of DOS Programming
- publish-date: May 2017
- subjects: programming, DOS
- link: Perspective on Text Adventures
- publish-date: Aug 2017
- subjects: text adventures, aesthetics
- link: Some Notes on Drawing
- publish-date: Oct 2017
- subjects: drawing
- link: Befunge Silver Jubilee Retrospective
- publish-date: May 2018
- subjects: Befunge (esolang)
- link: Some Notes on Proving Programs Correct
- subjects: program proving
- link: Interview with Daniel Temkin
- publish-date: May 2015
- external: true
Writing about code, where the writing is primary and the code is generally merely illustrative.
- link: Bootstrap Zero
- publish-date: Jul 2015
- written-during: RetroChallenge 2015/07
- external: true
- link: Overview of a Story Compiler
- publish-date: Nov 2015
- written-during: NaNoGenMo 2015
- external: true
- link: Nested Modal Transducers
- publish-date: Sep 2019
- link: Information Hiding in Scheme
- publish-date: May 2021
- link: Destructorizers
- publish-date: May 2022
- link: LCF-style Natural Deduction
- publish-date: Jun 2022
- link: Ahead-of-Time
eval - publish-date: Aug 2023
- link: An Esolang Reading List
- item-count: 15
- link: Some Production Programming Languages
- item-count: 11
- link: Some Games of Note
- item-count: many
- external: true
- link: 20th-Century Visual Artists of Note
- item-count: 7
- link: Some Papers I Really Liked
- item-count: many
Writing about code, where the code is arguably the main thing and the writing is in support of it; but for those cases when the writing is nonetheless playing a significant part or could stand alone.
- link: Specs on Spec
The collection of these writings is complicated by the fact that some may be writings per se, such as articles, while others may be writings in support of some other thing, such as programming language specifications.
These entries are written in Feedmark format, so in a pinch they can be read directly in a Markdown viewer such as git.catseye.tc, but they are canonically hosted at https://catseye.tc/view/The-Dossier/README.md.
Articles with a published-date are "frozen" and are not expected to be changed (edits will be noted). All other articles are subject to change.
Some of the articles in The Dossier are lists of items "of note". This section attempts to give some guidance on what that means.
An item "of note" is not necesarily considered a "favourite" or "best" or "recommended" thing — in fact, sometimes it is quite the opposite case. It's more that it is something that has stuck in my mind for one reason or another, and I would hate for them to be forgotten. Thus I feel I should not leave them go unmentioned.
Whether this should include classics — i.e., things that are unlikely to ever be forgotten anyway — is a matter of some debate. But the fact is that sometimes I still have something to say about these, or notable memories of these in some way or another. There is also the not-inconsiderable question of when something even is a classic or not, as a thing which is a classic in its own domain still might not be very well-known outside that domain.
So, classics often do end up being included in lists of items "of note", but they tend to rank lower than items that I think not as many people have heard of, and that I would like more people to be exposed to.