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Software Unscripted · Nov 15, 2025 · 1 hr 41 min

Jonathan Blow on Programming Language Design

Jonathan Blow, creator of popular games Braid and The Witness, talks with Richard about programming language design - including the design of the programming language he's been building for game developers. Keynote & Tech Demo - https://youtu.be/IdpD5QIVOKQ ECS and Rust's Borrow Checker - https://youtu.be/4t1K66dMhWk "The 30 Million Line Problem" - https://youtu.be/kZRE7HIO3vk "A New Programming Language for Games" - https://youtu.be/TH9VCN6UkyQ?si=Z5cqazo4QU7AibzB Roc Programming Language - https://roc-lang.org Casey Muratori's "Performance-Aware Programming" Course - https://www.computerenhance.com/p/welcome-to-the-performance-aware File Pilot File Explorer - https://filepilot.tech/ Ghostty Terminal - https://ghostty.org/ Language Server Protocol - https://microsoft.github.io/language-server-protocol/ WebAssembly Integer Sizes - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/WebAssembly/Reference/Numeric/Const Cliff Click's Sea of Nodes Compiler IR - https://github.com/SeaOfNodes/ Chapters 00:00 The Programming Establishment 02:04 Metaprogramming 05:04 Compile-Time Execution 08:05 Language Feature Interoperability 10:53 Compile Time Execution 27:52 Cross-Compiling and FFI 31:04 Determinism in Programming 35:07 Balancing Power and Safety 40:11 Memory Safety vs. Performance 50:15 The Evolution of Software Performance 55:32 Performance Awareness 01:03:56 Dependencies and Version Control 01:14:54 Dependency Availability Risk 01:18:42 Memory Management 01:24:51 Sandboxing 01:30:23 Operating Systems Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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transcript

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show notes

Jonathan Blow, creator of popular games Braid and The Witness, talks with Richard about programming language design - including the design of the programming language he's been building for game developers.


Keynote & Tech Demo - https://youtu.be/IdpD5QIVOKQ

ECS and Rust's Borrow Checker - https://youtu.be/4t1K66dMhWk

"The 30 Million Line Problem" - https://youtu.be/kZRE7HIO3vk

"A New Programming Language for Games" - https://youtu.be/TH9VCN6UkyQ?si=Z5cqazo4QU7AibzB

Roc Programming Language - https://roc-lang.org

Casey Muratori's "Performance-Aware Programming" Course - https://www.computerenhance.com/p/welcome-to-the-performance-aware

File Pilot File Explorer - https://filepilot.tech/

Ghostty Terminal - https://ghostty.org/

Language Server Protocol - https://microsoft.github.io/language-server-protocol/

WebAssembly Integer Sizes - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/WebAssembly/Reference/Numeric/Const

Cliff Click's Sea of Nodes Compiler IR - https://github.com/SeaOfNodes/


Chapters

00:00 The Programming Establishment

02:04 Metaprogramming

05:04 Compile-Time Execution

08:05 Language Feature Interoperability

10:53 Compile Time Execution

27:52 Cross-Compiling and FFI

31:04 Determinism in Programming

35:07 Balancing Power and Safety

40:11 Memory Safety vs. Performance

50:15 The Evolution of Software Performance

55:32 Performance Awareness

01:03:56 Dependencies and Version Control

01:14:54 Dependency Availability Risk

01:18:42 Memory Management

01:24:51 Sandboxing

01:30:23 Operating Systems


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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