Stream: contributing

Topic: Streaming Roc Development


view this post on Zulip Brendan Hansknecht (Oct 29 2023 at 22:41):

So this is just an idea in the back of my head. No idea if I will actually do it, but thought I would gauge interest.

For those interested in Roc, specifically those potentially interesting in Roc compiler or platform development, would you potentially be interesting in watching streams or youtube videos of/about roc development? If so what would you be most interested in seeing? In reality, if I do this, it would probably be some mix of the below, but want to see general interest.

I think there are number of possibilities for what I could specifically do depending on community interest. Here are my main ideas:

  1. Directly streaming Roc compiler development (maybe with some platform development). Would be focused on getting things done and hopefully explaining what I am doing. Would show what working on Roc really is like. Videos would also be uploaded to youtube for people to watch later if they want.
  2. Streaming more educationally focused videos/recaps. Instead of trying to stream the full live coding sessions would focus on recaps and teaching about the codebase. Would be more of a here is what I had to do to solve this problem in Roc. Would still be roc compiler development, but more of reviews. Maybe would do more Q&As and presentations. Might actually shift away from streaming and more just towards recap videos on youtube.
  3. Streaming roc application development instead of compiler development. Maybe would take suggestions from community and try to push forward the possibility of building specific types of apps in Roc. Would definitely need to do some platform development to enable certain types of applications.
  4. Other. Please comment below.

Any general comments, thoughts, suggestions, etc are all welcome.

view this post on Zulip Brendan Hansknecht (Oct 29 2023 at 23:14):

I guess as one related follow up:

  1. Interested in streams
  2. Interested in watching recording later/watching prerecorded videos.

view this post on Zulip Richard Feldman (Oct 31 2023 at 12:46):

I love this idea, and I hope it happens in some form! :smiley:

view this post on Zulip Brendan Hansknecht (Nov 01 2023 at 15:36):

For those who are maybe interested in watching a stream, when during an average week would you maybe tune in if I went live?

Please ignore the dates in the poll and just imagine a roughly generic week. If I don't choose specific dates, when2meet won't handle timezones. This is just to give me a rough idea of times that might work out for people in general.

https://www.when2meet.com/?22176005-W1IXS

view this post on Zulip Brendan Hansknecht (Nov 03 2023 at 23:09):

So I guess this is happening. First stream will be a bit more than 24 hours from now at

view this post on Zulip Brendan Hansknecht (Nov 03 2023 at 23:10):

Stream will be at https://www.twitch.tv/bhansconnect

view this post on Zulip Brendan Hansknecht (Nov 03 2023 at 23:10):

I will upload it to youtube afterwards and post a link

view this post on Zulip Brendan Hansknecht (Nov 03 2023 at 23:12):

Feel free to stop by and say hello. The main goal will be working on some Roc compiler pipelining to enable basic graphics platform to fully manage all pieces of compilation from build.zig. This should enable cross platform bundling of zig based platforms. @Luke Boswell will be joining me as a guest.

view this post on Zulip Elias Mulhall (Nov 04 2023 at 15:52):

I want to support this but am on vacation all week, looking forward to catching up and joining some later

view this post on Zulip Richard Feldman (Nov 05 2023 at 00:02):

:point_up: starting in 30 minutes! :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

https://www.twitch.tv/bhansconnect

view this post on Zulip Brendan Hansknecht (Nov 05 2023 at 00:30):

Stream is live!

view this post on Zulip Brendan Hansknecht (Nov 05 2023 at 04:15):

For long term watching purposes, the video is now also uploaded to youtube at: https://youtu.be/jfLeteRRnyM

view this post on Zulip Brendan Hansknecht (Nov 07 2023 at 05:33):

For anyone who watched the stream live or the video afterwards. Any general tips, feedback, etc?

view this post on Zulip Bryce Miller (Nov 07 2023 at 13:41):

It was a good stream! There is room to improve the audio, but that probably doesn’t make sense unless you plan to stream a lot.

view this post on Zulip Brendan Hansknecht (Nov 08 2023 at 23:20):

Next stream will be at https://www.twitch.tv/bhansconnect.

Not 100% sure what my focus will be yet. Current ideas are:

  1. LLVM C ABI refactor. This will be focused on how we call zig builtins. Cleanup is needed and it should help progress windows support.
  2. The List recursion issue with types like Node: List Node. Related compiler dev topic
  3. Rust glue work and basic webserver platform. Given I already did a solid amount of debugging here, may not actually be much work to do. Related compiler dev topic

view this post on Zulip Richard Feldman (Nov 08 2023 at 23:30):

regarding (1), @Folkert de Vries has done a bunch on that - would be good to coordinate!

view this post on Zulip Brendan Hansknecht (Nov 08 2023 at 23:41):

Yeah, we chatted some. There is still a core interface around bitcode functions that I want clean up and merge. No more call_list_bitcode_fn, call_str_bitcode_fn, special casing for dec as well, etc. The issue with the many versions is that functions that take combinations of lists, strings and/or decs need to be special cased. So want one generic dispatch that can bring all the special handling to a single location.

Though I do think Folkert fixed or was working on a large chunk of the windows issues.

view this post on Zulip Folkert de Vries (Nov 08 2023 at 23:59):

I actually worked on the (C) functions that roc exposes to the outside world. Brendan is talking more about how we interact with zig. I don't have any work going on in that area at the moment

view this post on Zulip Luke Boswell (Nov 09 2023 at 00:05):

All of these projects sounds awesome Brendan. Thank you for sharing this

view this post on Zulip Brendan Hansknecht (Nov 10 2023 at 19:30):

:point_up: starting in 30 minutes!

https://www.twitch.tv/bhansconnect

view this post on Zulip Brendan Hansknecht (Nov 10 2023 at 20:00):

Live now!

view this post on Zulip Brendan Hansknecht (Nov 10 2023 at 23:59):

Recording here: https://youtu.be/8yIopRtpeV8

view this post on Zulip Brendan Hansknecht (Nov 11 2023 at 00:00):

Definitely had a bit more technical difficulties and struggling, but at least figured out one main issue.

view this post on Zulip Brendan Hansknecht (Nov 11 2023 at 19:21):

So it took me a bit to realize this, but someone I bound my change scene shortcut to a shortcut I use all the time in helix and vim... Not sure how I missed that.

view this post on Zulip Mason Green (Nov 11 2023 at 20:23):

Brendan Hansknecht said:

... I use all the time in helix....

Is Roc syntax highlighting available for Helix!?

view this post on Zulip Brendan Hansknecht (Nov 11 2023 at 20:41):

Sadly nope. I will sometimes just turn on elm syntax highlighting when using roc. But mostly I program in rust in order to work on roc so I don't mind the lack of color in roc

view this post on Zulip Brendan Hansknecht (Nov 17 2023 at 02:16):

A bit delayed in the announcement, but I plan to stream next at

First gonna do some work on basic cli to reduce the binary size more. Then gonna to switch probably to working on how llvm calls zig builtins in our codebase. Though might first do some misc debugging to try and help others.

view this post on Zulip Brendan Hansknecht (Nov 17 2023 at 19:41):

Stream in 20 minutes at https://www.twitch.tv/bhansconnect

view this post on Zulip Brendan Hansknecht (Nov 17 2023 at 19:42):

Plan to explain some roc packaging and surgical linker high level stuff before working on reducing bloat in basic CLI and basic webserver.

If time permits, may start looking at the refactor for how llvm calls zig builtins.

view this post on Zulip Brendan Hansknecht (Nov 17 2023 at 20:01):

live now

view this post on Zulip Pearce Keesling (Nov 17 2023 at 21:57):

Looks like I just missed you. I'll be sure to check out the youtube vid though when that's up

view this post on Zulip Brendan Hansknecht (Nov 17 2023 at 22:43):

Video public at https://youtu.be/KMaofuwH7pU, but you proably want to wait a few hours before watching. Currently estimate is that HD will be ready around

view this post on Zulip Richard Feldman (Nov 17 2023 at 22:44):

ahh I missed it! Is the plan to make this a recurring time slot?

view this post on Zulip Brendan Hansknecht (Nov 17 2023 at 22:46):

I probably will do that, but am not completely sure yet. Also, won't be streaming next week due to vacation.

This was approximately the best time for interested people based on the initial whentomeet.

view this post on Zulip Brendan Hansknecht (Dec 07 2023 at 07:48):

I am planning to Stream again at : https://www.twitch.tv/bhansconnect

Not 100% sure my full plan, but I plan to start by talking about high performance dictionary implementations. What roc's dict is currently. Where its performance falls short currently. I may also work on the implementation (depending on if I finish my work tomorrow or not). Afterwards, may pick something else up or catch up on AOC in roc.

view this post on Zulip Brendan Hansknecht (Dec 07 2023 at 07:50):

Come join and feel free to ask any questions at all. Also, if you have any burning questions about roc that you want me to try to answer on stream, feel free to drop them here.

view this post on Zulip Luke Boswell (Dec 08 2023 at 05:47):

Looking forward to it :grinning:

view this post on Zulip Brendan Hansknecht (Dec 08 2023 at 19:00):

Will be live in one hour :point_up:

Made a few diagrams and will start by talking about what makes a hashsets fast. Going from a simple dictionary to the new version that I just wrote up for roc's standard library.

view this post on Zulip Brendan Hansknecht (Dec 08 2023 at 20:00):

Live now at https://www.twitch.tv/bhansconnect

view this post on Zulip Brendan Hansknecht (Dec 09 2023 at 01:33):

Stream up on youtube in HD for anyone interested: https://youtu.be/wNzszIYwj0w


Last updated: Jul 05 2025 at 12:14 UTC