Chris Liscio

I write SuperMegaUltraGroovy software: also a (quite old) grad student @UWaterloo.

[Chris Liscio @liscio]

Just FYI: I am an equally terrible follow on another website, using the usual handle.

[Chris Liscio @liscio]

@drwave Related: the ability (and willingness!) to read and understand the code of others.

It’s a super power, I tell you!

[Chris Liscio @liscio]

@sanguish @schwa @warpdotdev It's my love for the platform that makes me feel strongly.

I'm frustrated and disappointed by the fact that most people don't seem to care about things that make the Mac great, and thus poorly-behaving citizens can get away with murder. Even worse: they *thrive*.

[Chris Liscio @liscio]

@sanguish @schwa @warpdotdev Combine that with the yearly churn, unnecessary breakage of mature APIs, etc… It’s no wonder people ran screaming to build their own UI framework that just needs a native blitting API so they can get off the impossible treadmill.

[Chris Liscio @liscio]

@sanguish @schwa @warpdotdev Dropping the ball on macOS while they focused on iOS, then taking forever to make up their minds on unifying APIs only to give us a pair of still-immature technologies that further confuse us about what’s supposed to work on any given day.

[Chris Liscio @liscio]

@schwa @warpdotdev Which brings me back to my original point:

A developer that was willing (and capable) to go the extra mile to code (and profile!) against the platform-native graphics APIs is more likely to address this than a js dev who has _no clue_ what is happening beyond the DOM…

[Chris Liscio @liscio]

@schwa @warpdotdev But I think it's more productive to give constructive criticism to these folks.

i.e. More "Hey, here's how you should open a goddamned NSWindow for this, ding-dong!"

and less, "Get the fuck off my platform with that rust bullshit!"

[Chris Liscio @liscio]

@schwa @warpdotdev Even worse is that you'd _probably never_ be able to write a performance-oriented terminal with these features using SwiftUI, so I guess such a thing doesn't deserve to exist.

(Yes, I'm being facetious.)

[Chris Liscio @liscio]

@schwa @warpdotdev Isn't SwiftUI backed by an engine written using C++ and Metal?

I guess only Apple's allowed to do stuff like that, and we have to wait for not-backwards-compatible improvements to trickle out year by year… 🤪

[Chris Liscio @liscio]

@schwa @warpdotdev …and I just don't think it's fair to lump 'em in with the Electron crowd. They appear to have taken the platform integration (in terms of efficiency) very seriously: https://t.co/O7mCqoWiZN.

But, again—highly misguided. I don't even *like* the app, but think the tech. is neat.

[Chris Liscio @liscio]

@schwa @warpdotdev I fully agree—crappy app behavior everywhere.

BUT, these folks built for the Mac first, don't shove Chromium in there, and don't eat all your RAM. It's absolutely a misguided approach, but the app devs are closer to the system…

[Chris Liscio @liscio]

@Clarko @drwave @rentzsch Something like this, you mean?

(Yes, that’s what I wore for the special day…)

[Chris Liscio @liscio]

@hotdogsladies Wanted to watch a few minutes to see how it was, then ended up mainlining the whole thing.

I was fortunate to have discovered Carlin during my formative years—first hearing him on vinyl, then later repeatedly on cassettes during my summer jobs that had me in a car all day.

[Chris Liscio @liscio]

@chriseidhof Right now, working towards a MMath in CS. My thesis subject is Capo-adjacent, but not yet nailed down.

Classes this term are both seminars: InfoVis for AI Explainability, and Diversity in Software Eng. Fun topics, both!

[Chris Liscio @liscio]

Grad school is kinda hard, y’all…

…but, like, in the best possible way. 🤓

[Chris Liscio @liscio]

@Clarko Ha—I've never had a need for .compositingGroup() up until now, but rely on .drawingGroup() a lot. A clear indication of our differing backgrounds. 😀

[Chris Liscio @liscio]

@Clarko For sure—learning's the best part about what we do! Canvas is great, but drawing groups are basically a one-line solution to turn dozens (hundreds or thousands, really) into a flattened, singular "view element" under the hood that goes super duper fast.