Funny coincidence. Mine is “PowerShit”.

How does one get started on a toy OS? I don’t mean like concepts, but is there like a minimum viable OS .c file somewhere I can look at, with instructions for how to run it on “bare metal”? I assume I need a bootloader of some kind first?

I’m just totally unsure where I’d even begin in a practical sense.

I thought so too. When I started Geometry for Programmers, I was going to write all the formulas as SymPy snippets. I thought that was a brilliant idea because, yes, normally programmers are much more comfortable with code rather than with math notation, and math is not about notation anyway. Case in point, you can turn any SymPy expression into LaTeX with the `latex()` function. It doesn't make the expression any more mathematical, so the other way should apply just as well, right?

But the very first review shown that I was wrong. Very few people saw this as a good idea. Most wanted both formulas and code. Apparently, there is a certain "comfortable" level of math language in a math book readers do not wish to give up.

Anecdata, however: project-based learning is powerful because getting something to work brings pleasure and failing to make it work brings pain. Being able to manage cycles of pain-pleasure from various stages of building and refactoring a project (hardware can also be refactored) is the basis of learning.

Schools don't teach project-based learning because schools are not interested in learning; they are interested in child-rearing, not letting them kill each other while the parents are at work, and offering employment for teachers and administrators. In schools, generally, learning is an epiphenomenon, not even an afterthought, simply an accidental side effect.

In that spirit, my pet "a monad is a monoid in the category of endofunctors, duh"-style one-line explanation of the Fourier transform is that it's just the decomposition in the common (Hilbert) eigenbasis for all translation operators. It makes it surprisingly clear (to some) why it is a both natural and important construction.

Since that feature isn’t available on an actual board, it would really hamper your development as a player to use it when playing online.

It is a strength (they do cover tooling), but also a weakness. Throwing beginners into learning emacs, as well as a new language, and likely a new programming paradigm, is a massive ask. I think it is mistake for Clojure that Brave and True is the most recommended book to start out.

The problem with almost all LISP tutorials, books,... is there's no guide on how to install toolings at the beginning. Instead, there's just praise and praise.

Such a missed opportunity.

I would be willing to drink the kool-aid if I saw it being used in a practical way. I always feel these posts are filled with category theory jargon without ever explaining why any of the jargon is relevant or useful. I’ve even watched some applied category theory courses online and have yet to feel I’ve gained anything substantive from them.

However, as I started off with, I’m always willing to try something out or see the reason in something. Can anyone give me a practical applied way in which category theory is a benefit to your design rather than just creating higher level jargon to label your current design with?