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JohnEarnest
Decker
C2022–2026
JohnEarnest / Decker

Decker

A multimedia sketchpad

Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
9Distinct people
14Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
1.7KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

A multimedia sketchpad

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use has been verified yet.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year14 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2022-11-05 05:26:33 UTC to 2026-09-15 17:40:40 UTC.

0123452022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 1 submissions, 0 comments20222023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 5 mentions; 0 submissions, 5 comments20242025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 2 submissions, 2 comments2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments. Incomplete calendar period.2026*

* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC110
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC505
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC422
2026 (partial)2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC303

What Hacker News says

14 sources
RodgerTheGreat·Jun 7, 2025
Some programs, games, and zines made with Decker: https://itch.io/games/tag-decker Unlike LiveCode (or so far as I am aware HyperNext), Decker is free and open-source: https://github.com/JohnEarnest/Decker HyperNext doesn't appear to be actively developed; the most recent updates I see are from last year, and it can't be used on modern computers. Decker's most recent release was yesterday morning. I'd be happy to go into more detail if you like.
In Bill Atkinson has died
RodgerTheGreat·Nov 4, 2024
AWK is truly a gem. While it has some warts and quirks, it is nevertheless an extremely flexible, performant, and simple scripting language whose omnipresence is a remarkable asset. It's rather far afield from AWK's normal range of applications, but I recently wrote a portable AWK-hosted interpreter[0] for my own general-purpose scripting language, which provides some handy options for bootstrapping. It would be very interesting to explore building tools like assemblers or even a simple C compiler in AWK. [0] https://github.com/JohnEarnest/Decker/tree/main/tools/awk/
In Learn Awk in Y Minutes
pushfoo·Aug 6, 2024
TL;DR: Octo[1] and OctoJam were cozy little highlights despite the grimness of the pandemic years. Octo[1] targets variants of CHIP-8, an ancient virtual console. The language is so different from daily work that even its annoyances were refreshing. Yes, that includes having to overwrite parts of instructions to get desired behavior. The maintainer has moved on[2] to working on Decker[3], but I'm still grateful for his dedication. He underestimates his contributions to encouraging a new generation of emulator developers. I haven't had time to do a deep dive into emulation beyond CHIP-8, but I've enjoyed making: * A little Mastermind-like game (https://pushfoo.itch.io/safecracker) * A terminal-like text library (https://pushfoo.itch.io/termlib-demo) Others have done far better. Timendus even wrote his own linker toolkit to build a multi-ta
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sking operating system[4]. If you're interested, there have been some rumblings of an October event of some sort now and then on the EmuDev Discord server to fill the gap left by OctoJam's end. [1]: https://github.com/JohnEarnest/Octo [2]: https://beyondloom.com/blog/octojam.html [3]: https://github.com/JohnEarnest/Decker [4]: https://timendus.itch.io/chipception-os
In Ask HN: What's the most fun you've had developing for an older gaming system?
RodgerTheGreat·Jul 21, 2024
I had a go at an implementation of my own in Lil, using an imperative style rather than OOP. I tried to loosely follow the organization as shown here, but opted for a very different board representation, and I included some niceties like displaying board legends to aid in choosing the proper coordinates. https://github.com/JohnEarnest/Decker/blob/main/examples/lil... I'm really not convinced that OOP simplifies or clarifies this type of program.
In Exercise: Minesweeper in 100 lines of Ruby
pushfoo·Jun 27, 2024
> 'll reply in more detail later np! I'll comment now in case it gets weird about a double-comment on the same parent by the same user. > > I think it's the primary use case like Java Applets and Flash preceded JS as iterations of sorta-portable and low efficiency tools which make up for it with sheer volume of high-familiarity material. > i wasn't able to parse this sentence. could you unpack it a bit? Software that doesn't care about being well-made or efficient. It doesn't matter because it's either fun or useful. > > If you'd like, I can provide more specific suggestions. > yes, please! even if our priorities aren't exactly aligned i can surely learn a lot from you This is a long topic, but some of it comes down to Decker[1] vs Octo[2]'s differences: * Decker can be used to make and share things that process data * The data itself can
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be exported and shared, including as gifs * Octo can't really, but it does predate the AI commnity's "character cards" by shoving game data into a "cartridge" gif * Octo has LISP Curse[3] issues I'm serious about the LISP curse thing. In addition to awful function pointers due to ISA limitations, everyone who likes Octo tends to implement their own emulator, tooling, etc and then eventually start down the path of compilers. I haven't gone that far yet, but I did implement a prototyping-oriented terminal library[4] for it. Since Gulrak's chiplet preprocessor[5] is so good, I didn't bother with writing my own. > i just want to clarify that i'm not za3k Ty for the reminder. On that note, the larger font sizes you brought up are seeming more important in this moment. I don't think I can deal with 4 x 6 fonts on tiny screens like I once could. HN's defaults are already small enough. [1]: https://github.com/JohnEarnest/Decker [2]: https://github.com/JohnEarnest/Octo [3]: https://winestockwebdesign.com/Essays/Lisp_Curse.html [4]: https://github.com/pushfoo/octo-termlib [5]: https://github.com/gulrak/chiplet
In The Forth Deck mini: a portable Forth computer with a discrete CPU
RodgerTheGreat·Jan 12, 2024
Everything in web-decker is drawn to a canvas using a custom software-rendered imgui-style UI toolkit. I considered this approach essential for maintaining fidelity across platforms and implementations, but it does come with notable accessibility and performance tradeoffs. There is a native version of Decker implemented in C using SDL2. It's fairly easy to build from source for Linux[0], and I offer periodic Windows and MacOS builds on itch.io[1]. [0] https://github.com/JohnEarnest/Decker#building [1] https://internet-janitor.itch.io/decker
In A Love Letter to Tinkerable Software

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