I enjoy many things. Two in particular are alternative display technologies and using the right tool for the job. These combined in a truly joyful project when I wrote a script for the Rapid Riter.
When I first walked into the Recurse Center, the large red LED matrix mounted on the wall caught my eye immediately. I’ve been in a good number of hacker spaces, all strewn with exciting toys in various states of decay—this was the first space I’d experienced where the toys worked. I knew then I would have to make something for it. This, as you may have surmised by the label, is the Rapid Riter.
To get my program working, I orchestrated a series of tools in a beautiful symphony. Or at least, that’s how I felt writing it at midnight on a Saturday with wine glass full of water. The graphics are written in p5.js, an animation DSL, and uploaded directly to the Riter through Greg’s developer portal. The number is calculated via the Zulip API, and served from val—which I had heard of as a long-time follower of Tom MacWright’s blog but never used before. Writing little type-safe scripts that are live instantly, with proper secrets management? I loved it, and will be tucking it away for future projects.
When my script was done, I presented it during demos at Recurse. You’re encouraged to send daily “check-ins” during your time there: the final number I missed was much higher than the number above. If you want to see how high, you’ll just have to apply!