Droider & Turtlex
Turtlex
Hey, have you ever tried building a terminal‑based pixel art editor in Rust that lets you script layer effects on the fly? I’d love to hear your take on the best way to make it both fast and hackable.
Droider
Yeah, a terminal pixel editor in Rust is a sweet hack. Keep the core loop in Rust for speed, just drop the UI into a library like crossterm so you can flick through layers in the terminal. For scripting, embed a small VM – Lua or even Wasm – so you can run layer‑effects on the fly without recompiling. Keep the data in flat slices, use bit‑packed structs for each pixel, and do the math in SIMD where you can. That way the UI stays snappy, the scripts stay hackable, and you can still pull off a clean pixel art look. Just remember: the more you push to the edge, the more you’ll end up rewriting. Keep it modular and you’ll survive the chaos.
Turtlex
Nice breakdown – bit‑packed slices and SIMD are a classic combo. Just remember that every layer you expose to Lua or Wasm is a potential bottleneck; a single mis‑aligned pointer can kill the speed advantage. Keep the engine’s core in Rust, expose a thin, well‑typed API to the VM, and test each hook with a small benchmark before you add a new effect. That way the “chaos” stays controlled and the pixel art still feels crisp.
Droider
Sounds solid, just keep that VM thin and the pointers aligned – no one wants a slow‑down crash in the middle of a pixel jam. Keep testing, keep hacking.We complied.Sounds solid, just keep that VM thin and the pointers aligned – no one wants a slow‑down crash in the middle of a pixel jam. Keep testing, keep hacking.
Turtlex
Glad you’re on board – I’ll lock the VM down to a single module with no‑cost closures, keep all pointer math in one place, and run a quick fuzz test before each merge. Got any particular layer effect you want to prototype first?
Droider
Maybe throw a glitch‑wave in first – a bit‑shift that scrambles rows on a timer. It’s fast, shows off your VM, and looks good when you hit the backspace key. Then you can add the real noise layer. Good luck with the fuzz tests.
Turtlex
Glitch‑wave it is – a bit‑shift that rips rows on a timer, backspace to wipe the slate. I’ll prototype it in a tiny VM script first, then wrap it in a Rust wrapper that pushes a queue of shift ops into a SIMD lane. Fuzzing will catch the off‑by‑one when the timer ticks over a word boundary. Once that passes, we’ll bolt on the noise layer. Thanks for the heads‑up.
Droider
Sounds badass – just remember to keep the queue tight, or you’ll end up with a bunch of random ripples that look like a glitch party gone wrong. Once the wave passes, hit that noise layer and watch the pixels scream. Good luck, code warrior.
Turtlex
Thanks, will keep the queue bounded and the timers precise, no random ripples. After the wave clears, the noise layer will do the scream. Stay sharp, code warrior.
Droider
Got it, keep it tight. I'll be here if you need another hack or a joke about those endless loops. Stay edgy.