tromp 4 days ago

Curiously, in the pure lambda calculus with Church numerals, the factorial function doesn't need recursion, since Church numerals already act like iterators: fac = λn.λf.n(λf.λn.n(f(λf.λx.n f(f x))))(λx.f)(λx.x) or as a lambda diagram:

    ┬────────────────
    ┼─────────────┬──
    │ ──┬──────── ┼ ┬
    │ ┬─┼─┬────── │ │
    │ │ │ ┼─┬─┬── │ │
    │ │ │ ┼─┼─┼─┬ │ │
    │ │ │ └─┤ ├─┘ │ │
    │ │ │   ├─┘   │ │
    │ │ ├───┘     │ │
    │ ├─┘         │ │
    └─┤           │ │
      └───────────┤ │
                  └─┘
phoe-krk 4 days ago

Author here. Didn't expect this one on HN tonight, so AMA I guess.

  • senko 4 days ago

    Beautiful!

    Any plans on selling prints again (or perhaps the site you mentioned for the '21 Lisp conference still active)?

    (edit to add: I realize this is handcrafted art, was wondering if you have high-res scans you'd consider selling as prints)

    • phoe-krk 4 days ago

      Oh goodness. If you really want one, I could produce some. Poke me at phoe@disroot.org and we'll arrange for that.

      (Yes, I do have a scan!)

  • Lerc 4 days ago

    Preserve it well and you might one day really confuse an archeologist.

    • phoe-krk 4 days ago

      The original is hanging somewhere in a university in Germany. They'll take decent care of it, I presume.

      • ikari_pl 4 days ago

        how did it end up there?

        • phoe-krk 4 days ago

          AFAIR it was sent there after an auction during the online European Lisp Symposium 2021.

  • deruta 4 days ago

    Congrats on finding time! Maybe this will push me to get back to my nib stash, ha.

    Got any experience with adapting fountain pen inks for calligraphy?

    • phoe-krk 4 days ago

      Not really. I used Pilot Parallel pens exclusively for doing this piece, so I avoided most of the nib problems (and experience) myself.

  • ellis0n 4 days ago

    Incredible paper! Can you help me make something similar for the ACPUL programming language?

    • phoe-krk 4 days ago

      Ping me at phoe@disroot.org and let's get to it!

  • varjag 4 days ago

    Amazing work, not sure how I missed that!

    • phoe-krk 4 days ago

      Thanks. I didn't really promote this outside #commonlisp on IRC and Hacker News (linked by dang earlier).

raldi 4 days ago

It's beautiful, but isn't a codex a book? I thought that's what separates them from scrolls.

vinnyvichy 4 days ago

Nice to see that yin-yang of eval/apply floating in a sea of King James 1611

aagha 4 days ago

What made you want to do this?

  • phoe-krk 4 days ago

    The inspiration is linked in the article - I saw emacsomancer's machine-typeset Y Combinator Codex and I thought, "oh, I'll show you the Y Combinator Codex". The rest is about two weeks of intermittent calligraphic work.

nathell 4 days ago

Next time I'm in Kraków I'd like to buy you a beer, sir.

  • phoe-krk 4 days ago

    Sure! (A non-alcoholic one, please.)

dirtybirdnj 4 days ago

this is amazing work, looks hand done. can't imagine the time that goes into something like this, just figuring out how to compose it... and not making mistakes?!

very cool

  • phoe-krk 4 days ago

    An important part of doing calligraphy (or any other work where Ctrl+Z is not an option) is improvising of how to cover things up so that such mistakes become invisible.

    I have actually made a huge mistake in the original, and then managed to cover it up. (Hint: the metallic paint I used is highly opaque.)

mynameisnoone 4 days ago

Should sell mostly prints but some originals on Etsy.

  • phoe-krk 4 days ago

    I have no time nor will to make this a part-time job. Burnout is a real thing, hence I don't want to turn all of my hobbies into money-making machines.

narag 4 days ago

Very nice!

gwern 4 days ago

A regrettable name. Everyone who sees it will assume that it's something like 'a startup self-help book'.

  • dang 4 days ago

    I've attempted to disambiguate it with a s/C/c/g. That's too subtle for most first glances, but I think most HN readers will understand it on a second or third look.

    Combinators are always welcome on HN!

    • phoe-krk 4 days ago

      Maybe we might want to add something like "- Lisp calligraphy piece" to the end of the title, if this should be an exception to the keep-the-original-title rule.

  • hayley-patton 4 days ago

    Omega combinators would have made for better growth hacking.