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The Dossier
See also: Chrysoberyl ∘ The Dipple ∘ The Glosscubator
This repository collects references to (and sometimes contains) things written by Chris Pressey of Cat's Eye Technologies. For more information, see below.
Featured
⭐ Esolang: An Esolang Reading List
⭐ Video games: Some Games of Note
⭐ Aesthetics: The Aesthetics of Esolangs, 2013
⭐ Art: Some Notes on Drawing, 2017
⭐ Engineering: Facts about State Machines, 2022
⭐ Research: Some Papers I Really Liked
Articles
Retrospective on Language Design
- link: Retrospective on Language Design
- publish-date: Jul 2010
- subjects: programming languages, esolang
Programming Languages as an Artistic Medium
- link: Programming Languages as an Artistic Medium
- publish-date: Apr 2013
- subjects: programming languages, art
The Aesthetics of Esolangs
- link: The Aesthetics of Esolangs
- publish-date: Jun 2013
- subjects: programming languages, aesthetics
A Basic Theory of Video Games
- link: A Basic Theory of Video Games
- publish-date: May 2017
- subjects: video games, formal theory
Blurry Memories of DOS Programming
- link: Blurry Memories of DOS Programming
- publish-date: May 2017
- subjects: programming, DOS
Perspective on Text Adventures
- link: Perspective on Text Adventures
- publish-date: Aug 2017
- subjects: text adventures, aesthetics
Some Notes on Drawing
- link: Some Notes on Drawing
- publish-date: Oct 2017
- subjects: drawing
Befunge Silver Jubilee Retrospective
- link: Befunge Silver Jubilee Retrospective
- publish-date: May 2018
- subjects: Befunge (esolang)
Some Notes on Proving Programs Correct
- link: Some Notes on Proving Programs Correct
- subjects: program proving
Facts about State Machines
- link: Facts about State Machines
- publish-date: Sep 2022
- subjects: state machines, software engineering
Interviews
Interview with Daniel Temkin
- link: Interview with Daniel Temkin
- publish-date: May 2015
- external: true
Expositions
Writing about code, where the writing is primary and the code is generally merely illustrative.
Bootstrap Zero
- link: Bootstrap Zero
- publish-date: Jul 2015
- written-during: RetroChallenge 2015/07
- external: true
Overview of a Story Compiler
- link: Overview of a Story Compiler
- publish-date: Nov 2015
- written-during: NaNoGenMo 2015
- external: true
Nested Modal Transducers
- link: Nested Modal Transducers
- publish-date: Sep 2019
Information Hiding in Scheme
- link: Information Hiding in Scheme
- publish-date: May 2021, revised Jul 2026
Destructorizers
- link: Destructorizers
- publish-date: May 2022
LCF-style Natural Deduction
- link: LCF-style Natural Deduction
- publish-date: Jun 2022
Ahead-of-Time eval
- link: Ahead-of-Time
eval - publish-date: Aug 2023, revised Jan 2025, revised Aug 2026
Machine State Combinators
- link: Machine State Combinators
- publish-date: Feb 2025
Lists
An Esolang Reading List
- link: An Esolang Reading List
- item-count: 16
Some Production Programming Languages
- link: Some Production Programming Languages
- item-count: 11
Some Games of Note
- link: Some Games of Note
- item-count: many
20th-Century Visual Artists of Note
- link: 20th-Century Visual Artists of Note
- item-count: 7
Some Papers I Really Liked
- link: Some Papers I Really Liked
- item-count: many
Documentation
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.
The Quylthulg Programming Language
The Larabee Programming Language
Specs on Spec
- link: Specs on Spec
Further Information
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.
A Note on Items "of Note"
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.
Commit History
@master
git clone https://git.catseye.tc/The-Dossier/
- Bring Classic Arcade Game Screenshots into this repo. Chris Pressey 2 months ago
- Last few tweaks to script; use on Brit TV Games screenshots. Chris Pressey 2 months ago
- Yet more fixups Chris Pressey 2 months ago
- More fixups Chris Pressey 2 months ago
- Checkpoint improving script. Chris Pressey 2 months ago
- Add script to help us bring images into the repo. Chris Pressey 2 months ago
- Bring one screenshot into repo, used under Fair Dealing. Chris Pressey 2 months ago
- Merge branch 'master' into ahead-of-time-eval-2026 Chris Pressey 2 months ago
- Merge branch 'master' into embedded-screenshots Chris Pressey 2 months ago
- Update links using http protocol, to use https protocol. Chris Pressey 2 months ago
- Update links to static content on catseye.tc. Chris Pressey 2 months ago
- Add REUSE-style license information for Fair Dealing. Chris Pressey 2 months ago
- Finish example (more or less) Chris Pressey 2 months ago
- Related work and fix the example. Chris Pressey 2 months ago
- Small edit Chris Pressey 2 months ago
- Checkpoint more writing on this Chris Pressey 2 months ago
- Update copyright year Chris Pressey 2 months ago
- Add `cond-eval` example macro. Chris Pressey 2 months ago
- Write about what makes a hygienic macro, etc. Chris Pressey 2 months ago
- Begin set of edits for updated exposition of AoT-eval. Chris Pressey 2 months ago
- Update one word Chris Pressey 2 months ago
- Minor edits after proofreading. Chris Pressey 2 months ago
- Note document publish history. Chris Pressey 2 months ago
- Update examples used in the article. Chris Pressey 2 months ago
- Moderate update, explaining that option 2 is not actually an ADT. Chris Pressey 3 months ago
- Update the Table of Contents, including script that generates it Chris Pressey 3 months ago
- Write more about these. They will go in without screenshots. Chris Pressey 3 months ago
- Merge branch 'master' into update-some-games-of-note-2026-1 Chris Pressey 3 months ago
- Cleanup before merge. Chris Pressey 3 months ago
- Merge branch 'master' into update-esolang-reading-list-2026-1 Chris Pressey 3 months ago