So one thing that came out of the cli dev session, was some interest in a platform dev session. So starting this thread. I would definitely be willing to lead something, though scoping may be complex.
So any ideas around what would be an interesting platform to see built or what parts of platforms people are most interested in learning about.
I guess it might also end up being more diving into how a platform works and lightly modifying ond rather than making a new platform...just due to time and scoping
here's a wild pitch: there are a lot of things out there now that accept WASM plugins. CloudFlare workers, for example, or Helix's upcoming plugin API. It might be good to go from zero to hello world on one of those!
or something related to creative coding? Supercollider or similar?
(although I guess I'm thinking like conference pitches right now when "let's bind to a socket and poke it with netcat" is more appropriate)
It has been a while since I suggested this, and I thought I should work on making it more concrete. Avoid it accidentally being delayed forever/forgotten.
For those interested in a live session about Roc platform development, what would you most want to see:
:one: A session heavily focused on explaining and not so much on coding. Would go over the pieces of a platform, how they fit together, and how they are built. Would be looking at an existing platform and maybe modify it a tiny bit.
:two: A sessions where I recreate a platform that already exists. Would be able to focus heavily on explaining due to not creating anything new. Would also potentially copy and paste a solid bit of functionality instead of live coding it (to make it go smoother/faster).
:three: A session where I more focus on platform modification. I would start with an existing platform, go over some explanation and then dive into expanding the platform to contain an extra feature.
:four: A totally new platform. I would really be live coding a lot and figuring things out as I go. Might hit some road bumps. Overall, would be more raw platform dev. Get to see the entire process and hopefully I still do a good job of explaining everything. This option could lead to just staring at a segfault for a long time only to realize I did something really silly.
:five: Other, leave a comment below.
staring at a segfault for a long time only to realize I did something really silly
Story of my life lol
They all seem interesting - I'd really love to understand the process of the glue code, seeing roc glue
in action.This is why I voted for option 2 where I believe we would be seeing more of the real coding workflow (tho 1 seems nice as well for the first session)
Don't know if it's possible or how, but I would love to have a deeper look to the compiler architecture.
Some kind of livestream that a newcomer (on the developer side) could use to get familiar with the compiler. An additional help to the current compiler README.md introduction.
roc glue
would definitely be used in 2 and 4....probably 3 as well.
Don't know if it's possible or how, but I would love to have a deeper look to the compiler architecture.
Would be interesting to do, but definitely out of the scope for this session
Brian Hicks said:
here's a wild pitch: there are a lot of things out there now that accept WASM plugins. CloudFlare workers, for example, or Helix's upcoming plugin API. It might be good to go from zero to hello world on one of those!
This sounds interesting. Would WASM be a new platform or could it be a compile target for an existing platform like cli?
Platforms can be setup to compile to wasm. They are kinda different due to how wasm/js handle things, but a few wasm targeting examples already exist.
Last updated: Jul 06 2025 at 12:14 UTC