Evaluating Algebraic Expressions using Parser Combinators
In this post, I describe how parser combinators can be used to parse recursive languages, as well as deal with operator precedence and associativity.
Varun Ramesh's Blog
Updates on projects and musings about technology.
Latest posts
An Introduction to Parser Combinators
This post introduces parser combinators, a technique for building complex parsers through the composition of simple components.
ChatGPT is Good at Roleplaying Characters
ChatGPT is really good at roleplaying as strange and unusual characters with minimal prompting.
Simple Tips to Level Up Your Python Programming Skills
Simple tips for beginners to level up their Python skills (with interactive code snippets).
Thermomorph Postmortem
A postmortem for Thermomorph, an Alien-inspired horror game.
Proctor Postmortem
This is a postmortem for Proctor, the first of three horror games that I recently released.
Loop, Autoplay, Muted, Playsinline - Say Goodbye to Animated GIFs
Use HTML5 video tags instead of animated GIFs.
The Boehm GC Feels Like Cheating
Integrating garbage collection into a C application was almost too easy.
No More Primitives - What Python and Java Get Wrong
Many languages distinguish between primitives on the stack and objects on the heap. Others only have objects, and thus require primitives to aways be boxed. It turns out you can get the best of both worlds.
I Allowed All Web Push Notifications for a Week
As an experiment, I decided to allow all push notifications for a week.
Editing Gameplay Videos without Re-encoding using FFmpeg
Editing gameplay videos in Premiere requires that you re-encode, thus losing quality. Instead, you can use FFmpeg to edit losslessly.
How I Structure GameObjects - Components and Mixin-based Inheritance
My recent game projects have used a GameObject architecture that unifies Component-based GameObjects and Mixin-based inheritance.
Lua Gotchas
Lua is an awesome language, but it has some annoying features that have caused endless frustration for me.
Composable, Programmatic Animations for Games
This post describes a method for creating animations in games programmatically, while still retaining composability.
Unifying Dynamic Type Tests and Type Refinement
Some typecheckers understand dynamic type tests, thus avoiding downcasting.
Stackless vs. Stackful Coroutines
Coroutines can either be stackless or stackful. The terminology is somewhat confusing.
Spaced Out - CS148 Ray tracing Project
A write-up for my CS 148 ray tracing image.
Automatically Promoting Constructor Parameters to Fields
When writing object-oriented code, you frequently want a constructor that takes in values and assigns them to object fields. Some languages reduce the repetition required for this.
Runaway Robot - A Mobile Runner Game
I made a mobile runner game for the CS194 class at Stanford.
Pulling a Page's Modified Date from Git
When creating a static site, you can pull a page's modified date directly from git.
Blue Screen - Ludum Dare 30 Entry
Last weekend, I participated in Ludum Dare, a game jam where you make a game from scratch in under 48 hours.
ASCII Bell Character
The other day, I accidentally printed a ton of binary data to my terminal. Upon doing so, my computer started to beep incessantly.
Simple Reloading Server in Bash
A snippet for a reloading server in bash.
The Damned
A couple weeks ago, I took part in a game jam on itch.io called the AGDG Microgame Jam.
A Perk of Using WebGL
WebGL games can use HTML/CSS for GUIs. It's a lot easier to use than most game engine UI frameworks.
Recent Hackathon Projects
I write about some recent hackathon projects I worked on.
Designing a Cardboard Canoe
Every year, my high school holds a canoe race, where students from the Engineering, Physics, and Calculus classes compete to design, build and race a Canoe over the span of two weeks.