JavaScript Demos in 140 Characters

249 pointsposted 15 hours ago
by themanmaran
(beta.dwitter.net)

52 Comments

lionleaf

12 hours ago

Fun to see this on HN! :D

Apologies for the quick reboot of the servers. I learned from last time this happened and resized the digitalocean droplet.

amiga386

15 hours ago

It's very cool, but it's also a shame that measuring in characters leads to the metagame of using 97 multi-byte Unicode characters that decode to 194 ASCII characters when reinterpreted. Almost everything is in the format:

    eval(unescape(escape`<<97 wide characters>>`.replace(/u../g,'')))
Can't they just have the same agreement that Ford Prefect had with Mr Prosser? "So, assuming I'm going to use this lossless compression technique to fit 194 characters into a 140 character tweet... how about you just show the 194 characters and say that I fitted into 140 characters?"

I suppose you could make the same argument about size-based competitions at demo parties; the limit is strictly 4096 bytes but everyone + their dog is using Crinkler to compress a 12-20KB executable down to that size. In fact, part of the effort is in aligning data and tweaking constants with Crinkler's algorithm in mind, to make the raw data more amenable to compression! But at least then, it's not a constant compression (turning any 194 ASCII characters into 97 Unicode characters which with embedded decoder makes exactly 140 characters)

fainpul

14 hours ago

Or simply set the limit in bytes (e.g. 140 bytes of UTF8 encoded text).

jonahx

11 hours ago

This is the standard (for good reason) in code golf.

musicandpiss

11 hours ago

I have been using Hacker News for 20 years now and this comment is already topping the all time charts of replies.-)

lukebechtel

8 hours ago

(sidebar) love to see a subtle, applicable HHG ref :)

layer8

8 hours ago

To be fair, 140 bytes (1120 bits) corresponds to 160 ASCII characters, or even 170 characters if you exclude control characters.

MORPHOICES

19 minutes ago

Viewing sites like Dwitter always refreshes my confidence in creativity. ~

You would expect severe restrictions to yield sameness. On the contrary, you receive untamed variety. Optical illusions. Modern sayings. People twisting the medium in unplanned directions.

The trend I’ve noticed.

Limits prevent uninvited focus.

Constraints that we all share can become a shared language.

A tiny scope reduces experimentation expenditure.

When the area of surface is small, people penetrate deep instead of spread wide. They experiment with odd concepts since failing is inexpensive and quick.

Unlike most platforms that add features to unlock creative potential, which actually ends up overwhelming it.

A rule that I keep coming back to: if something feels playful, constraints are probably doing their job.

Inquisitive.

In what situations did restrictions lead to better outcomes?

When do limitations start to seem fictitious?

What contemporary instruments ought to be more limited?

rsiqueira

8 hours ago

A small, curated collection of generative sketches written in 140 characters each, using plain JavaScript on dwitter.net.

Fractals: https://www.dwitter.net/h/fractal

Dynamical systems / chaos: https://www.dwitter.net/h/chaos

Strange attractors: https://www.dwitter.net/h/attractor

Spiral-based generative art: https://www.dwitter.net/h/spiral

Fireworks simulation: https://www.dwitter.net/h/fireworks

Procedural scenes: https://www.dwitter.net/h/scene

Wavelets (3D and 2D): https://www.dwitter.net/h/wavelet

And the most popular dweets: https://www.dwitter.net/top/all

varenc

14 hours ago

TIL that

   js_func`string`
is valid JS and calls `js_func` as a tagged template literal, passing it a TemplateStringsArray. Going to use "console.log`weeee`" in my code now.

Lerc

12 hours ago

I recently used the feature in a code embedded image generator so I could have compact images store tiny images in inline code.

https://gisthost.github.io/?8d537c4a3b2331e7c6c45d31f1900330

The Trashcan in that sampler is stored as

    TRASH: Q`!B>#Z>!F>#F:V:V>!>B#^BZfBf3`
decoded to a SVG D path by

    function Q([e]){let c,t,n,d="",l=0,o=c=>e.charCodeAt(l++)-33;for(;l<e.length;d+=t<20?(c=1&t?100:10,"MmLlHhVvCcSsQqTtAaZz"[t]):t<71?t-45+" ":71==t?(n=o(),e.slice(l,l+=n)):(94*(t-72)+o()-1033)/c+" ")t=o();return d}
which can be turned into an image by

    function simpleImage(p="M-22 -22 h44 v44 h-44 Z",w=64,h=w,o={}){let{background:b="#0000",stroke:s="#000f",fill:f="#fffa",thickness:t=w/32,transform:m=[1,0,0,1,0,0],scale:c=1,angle:a=0}=o;const C=new OffscreenCanvas(w,h),X=C.getContext("2d");let P=new Path2D(p);m instanceof DOMMatrix||(m=new DOMMatrix(m));m.translateSelf(w/2,h/2);m.rotateSelf(a);m.scaleSelf(c,c);let T=new Path2D;T.addPath(P,m);P=T;X.fillStyle=b;X.fillRect(0,0,w,h);X.fillStyle=f;X.strokeStyle=s;X.lineWidth=t;X.stroke(P);X.fill(P);return C}
The Sampler contains all of the images in the html file and still comes out to be only 13k. Probably quite a bit less if you removed the ray tracer and scenes.

econ

11 hours ago

&#128465; is prettier :)

rriley

12 hours ago

Niiice! I finally understand the origin of this JS syntax used in SQL queries and GraphQL:

sql`SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = ${userId}`

const q = gql` query GetUser { user(id: ${userId}) { name email } } `;

jedschmidt

11 hours ago

i went super deep on 140-byte code golfing[1] back when twitter was taking off, and it changed the way i think about code. for a brief while we had a small community collaborating on byte-squeezing techniques[2], and i was constantly amazed at the creativity that this constraint brought about, from mandelbrot renderings to sudoku solvers. possibly the best part was more than a decade later when i found my golfed UUID implementation[3] deep in my employer's codebase.

[1] https://youtu.be/JsAetmgJRss?si=AxIFySX7ktzu5GL5&t=193

[2] https://github.com/jed/140bytes/wiki/Byte-saving-techniques

[3] https://gist.github.com/jed/982883

H3X_K1TT3N

10 hours ago

Welp, that took up a chunk of my day. This is as far as I got tricking it into doing webgl (it just renders a triangle):

if(!window.g){gc=document.createElement('canvas');g=gc.getContext('webgl');c.parentNode.replaceChild(gc,c);k=Object.keys(g.__proto__);d='void main(){gl_';str = `g395(g41,g318())g310(g41,new Float32Array([0,0.5,0,-0.5,-0.5,0,0.5,-0.5,0]),g46);a=g322(g139)g382(a,'attribute vec3 c;${d}Position=vec4(c,1);}')g313(a);b=g322(g138)g382(b,'${d}FragColor=vec4(1,0,1,0);}')g313(b);d=g320()g302(d,a)g302(d,b)g376(d)g393(d)g435(0,3,g128,0,0,0)g406(0)g404(g12,0,3)`.replace(/g(\d+)/g,"\ng.\${k[$1]}");eval("eval(`"+str+"`)")}

I assume there are far more advanced methods than what I managed to do, so it's probably possible to actually get that to 140 characters.

H3X_K1TT3N

an hour ago

Every time I think I couldn't possibly make it smaller, I manage to shave off a few more bytes. Got it under 400 now:

x.arc&&c.parentNode.replaceChild(g=c.cloneNode(),c);x=g.getContext`webgl`;f=Float32Array;eval(`d=320()395(41,318())310(41,new f([0,n=0.5,-n,-n,n,-n]),46)${z='382(a=322(13'}9),'attribute vec2 c;${d='void main(){gl_'}Position=vec4(c${w=",0,1);}')313(a)302(d,a)"}${z}8),'${d}FragColor=vec4(0,1${w}376(d)393(d)435(0,2,128,0,0,0)406(0)404(12,0,3)`.replace(/\d{2,}/g,"\nx[Object.keys(x.__proto__)[$&]]"))

leptons

10 hours ago

Most of the amazing stuff on dwitter.net is using plain old fillRect

Clever math does the heavy lifting on dwitter.net

H3X_K1TT3N

10 hours ago

Yeah, that's fair, but I just wanted to see if I could do it this way (for funsies)

socalgal2

14 hours ago

I love these but I wish they'd disallow the eval thing. I also which they'd added more shortcuts. Like IIRC they have `s` for `Math.sign` but so if they're going to shorten things they could have gone much further. `globalCompositeOperation` etc...

Lerc

13 hours ago

You have to keep in mind that for anything like this, the platform has to exist before the ways to game the rules are thought up. To change things after the platform is up and running makes it a moving target and for something like this a fixed target is intrinsically part of the appeal.

Dwitter used the definition of what Twitter at the time used. The solution of https://beta.dwitter.net/ mitigates the lack of accessibility of the encoding, while keeping the fixed target at the same time introducing a new practical target.

The Math.sin css color encoder were concessions to practicality, there has been much discussion as to whether a Dwitter 2 should simply include additional characters required to the same preconfig and let people do it themselves, and let them use the characters for something else if they can think of something.

I'd like something like this just to see how creative people get in doing that. How small can you make a bit of JavaScript that copies every static method of Math to window?

and creativity is the goal here. No matter how people stretch the system, it can't be denied they have been doing so creatively.

recursive

14 hours ago

You have to fix the scoring. Blacklisting eval is whack-a-mole forever. If you switch the scoring to use bytes of UTF-8 encoded text, that pretty much aligns everything. There might still be some use for packing data in string literals, but wholesale source code packing would probably mostly stop.

leptons

11 hours ago

I've been on dwitter.net for many years, and I'm fine with eval. The rules are the rules (or lack of rules).

socalgal2

8 hours ago

Yea, because no one has ever changed any rules. Every sport has changed rules, lots of games have chagned rules. It's kind of irrelevant. Removing eval and adding new shortcuts would just start a new era of creativity.

econ

11 hours ago

OT: we should really extend bbcode with a safe scripting language. The hilarious stuff that could happen in threaded discussions. You could have a sub set of safe instructions that get executed automatically, a larger set of instructions that require pressing a button under the comment. (And a button to view the code) Then a 3rd set that triggers permission dialogs for things like loading (1 or n) external data sets. "Uploading" files, loops that run more than 30,1000 or 10k rounds, access to camera/photos, canvas, LLM etc

You start a topic by pasting a dataset or a link to some JSON csv, xml, sql files, etc, then add a description or some other rage bate to start a conversation.

Seems much fun and a great way to start getting into coding.

est

9 hours ago

svg?

econ

8 hours ago

It obviously requires a lot of figuring out (by better men than me) but it seems a worthwhile adventure.

The halting problem can just be figured out experimentally in production. Users might need to earn or lose privileges over time as things escalate. Admins might approve a script and allow running it without prompts or pressing the button.

Perhaps entire applications can be written this way. I much enjoyed old php code with discussions in threaded comments. (The cache will save us.)

Reminds me of Richard

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/184618/what-is-the-best-...

someonewithpc

8 hours ago

> the halting problem can just be figured out experimentally in production That's a wild statement

tluyben2

6 hours ago

Nice work; I remember browsing it during covid.

Tried AI for a standalone html page snippet renderer[0].

I tried just feeding it snippets one by one and that worked, but the raymarching ones it could not get going until I gave it the dwitter github repos. Now most, but not all (simple to fix manually though), work.

Also interesting to see Claude is terrible at trying to write the art (the demos itself) and seeing what it tries to do; not surprising given the challenge.

[0] https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/d8b357df-5982-48c6-be58-7...

falloutx

14 hours ago

It seems like dwitter outlived twitter. Goated site.

RyanOD

5 hours ago

Thinking back to days with The Zen of CSS Design, this is just incredible.

It's the weekend! Take a journey back in time...

https://csszengarden.com/

kace91

7 hours ago

I wonder what could be a criteria for demos like this that doesn’t devolve into code golf nor spawns giant files.

I’m not saying that to disparage the content mind you; it is amazing. Just wondering which potential rules could make similar results and “normal”/readable code, as that would be awesome to see.

lionleaf

7 hours ago

Shadertoy might fit that category? Runs in the browser, are all fragment shaders and without a size limit afaik, but they tend to be small-ish

https://www.shadertoy.com/

aziis98

15 hours ago

There are many made with eval-unescape-escape that feel a bit like cheating. Still all very impressive

jsheard

15 hours ago

The compression tricks used in standalone Javascript demos are significantly more cursed. The meta is to concatenate a compressed binary payload and a HTML/JS decompression stub in the same file, abusing the fact that HTML5 parsers are required to be absurdly tolerant of malformed documents. Nowadays it's done using raw DEFLATE and DecompressionStream, but before that was available they would pack the payload into the pixels of a PNG and use Canvas to extract the data.

Try saving this Normal HTML File and open it in a text/hex editor: https://0b5vr.com/domain/domain.html

senfiaj

14 hours ago

If it's possible to do with vanilla JS in any environment then it's not cheating.

sshadmand

11 hours ago

What a cool concept to turn the SM 140 chars concept into a programming demo list! Is there a reverse to this that work to compress a JS script into 140 chars to help show some creative ideas without needing to fully understand the code? Also, how good is AI at generating these in your experiences?

leptons

11 hours ago

There have been a few "AI" submissions, but they honestly aren't that great.

alexpadula

12 hours ago

The website seems to be unresponsive on iPhone safari.

leptons

9 hours ago

Too bad Safari is the only browser engine allowed on iPhone.