A virtual machine made with Google Sheets formulas (no script)
Languages and libraries
esoteric language interpreter
SHOW HN2017
Legend
A virtual machine made with Google Sheets formulas (no script)
A virtual machine made with Google Sheets formulas (no script)
news.ycombinator.com#brainfuck#google sheets#interpreter#virtual machine#spreadsheet formulas
How HN took it
7 positive, 8 neutral or asking, 1 mixed, 1 critical, out of 17 comments about the project. Thread score +0.30.
Execution: 2 for, 0 againstDesign: 1 for, 0 againstDocs: 1 for, 0 againstIdea: 0 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Clever parenthesis matching implementation
From 2 comments
Awesome, nice work.
briansteffens on HNOh, that's pretty clever. Thanks for the explanation!
doubleplusgood on HN
Impressive how quickly it was built
From 2 comments
This is very cool as well. A comment about how you have presented this - not everything has to be an interesting technical accomplishment. Creating beginners is a much harder…
j45 on HNWow this is cool and you did this really fast! So you did kind of a functional style where each row represents an instruction being run with a full copy of the state of the VM at…
briansteffens on HN
Useful for teaching how a CPU works
From 1 comment
Also, I think I'm going to use this in beginners' lessons in programming from now on. Everyone understands the level of Excel formulas used in the orange table, so this really…
SonOfLilit on HN
Objections
Brainfuck is esoteric and unsuited to beginners
From 1 comment
Have you used Brainfuck in an educational context before? It seems rather esoteric and unfamiliar, especially for beginners. They will likely be distracted by the inscrutable…
resu_nimda on HN
Original post was presented poorly and the tone was condescending
From 1 comment
Have you used Brainfuck in an educational context before? It seems rather esoteric and unfamiliar, especially for beginners. They will likely be distracted by the inscrutable…
resu_nimda on HN
Requests
Write-up explaining the parenthesis parser
From 1 comment
Yeah I don't follow the parenthesis parser. Plan to do a write-up of some kind on how it works?
briansteffens on HN
Emulate a more useful instruction set with formulas
From 1 comment
Next step is emulating a more fulfilling instruction set using formulas only?
thriftwy on HN
Questions
How does the parenthesis parser work
From 1 comment
Yeah I don't follow the parenthesis parser. Plan to do a write-up of some kind on how it works?
briansteffens on HN
How input and output work in the sheet
From 1 comment
Ah. I thought "." must be printing (as it's something similar to that in Forth [guess it's ".s" though not "."]), but I was confused by the comma because I didn't understand how…
eatonphil on HN
Alternatives named
Apps Script Brainfuck VM by briansteffens
From 2 comments
If you still don't get some part of what's going on after copying it and playing with it a bit (A1 is the code, A2 is the input, you can find an explanation of BF and a simple…
SonOfLilit on HNMy previous startup was about teaching programming to beginners with computer games, so I definitely have an appreciation for that. I made sure to point out that I still consider…
SonOfLilit on HN
PowerPoint Turing completeness video
From 1 comment
See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNjxe8ShM-8 (On The Turing Completeness of PowerPoint)
aviraldg on HN