i feel inadequate, even though that doesnt make much sense. the reason i feel inadequate is that
i cannot make it make sense in my mind. the way flok works is a complete mystery to me and no
matter how long i try to make it make sense, i cannot make it make sense.
i know i dont technically need to know how flok works, but i do need to know how flok works if
i want to make a flok client that is anything other than iframes. i could not have made ravioli,
nor could i have made half a ravioli, or half a dente even. it feels almost as opaque as llm
code, i can read it but i cannot make it make sense, it just is.
i also cannot meaningfully contribute to any currently existing flok client. so i am stuck being
the user. i dont want to just be the user.
it makes me incredibly angry and makes me feel way more hopeless than it should, and i dont even
know what i feel hopeless about. i try again and again and again and every time i get failure
after failure. its as if i have a mental blockade against understanding this specific piece
of technology. why?! why wont it make sense?!
when people say "we need to make a new flok client", others answer "do it", but its clear that
neither the person asking nor most of the people listening know how. every time i hear either of
them, i get incredibly frustrated with myself. i am not used to such a profound level of failure.
will someone please write some fucking documentation
commit, removing the above line, saying: please do not make aggressive demands of other jammers 💖
im not sure you understand what i mean with this blog post. this is a rant full of self
deprecation because i feel like shit from the assumption and implicit demand
that anyone can do anything without ever being shown how. my demand is exactly as agressive as
answering "💖 [just] 💖 do it",
except i am at least being honest about making a demand. if the
self hate i express here as caused by how pastagang acts is allowed to fly without a single
comment or word of support, but as soon as i make a demand to improve things it is edited away,
the only thing this accomplishes is make me want to kill pastagang once more as it clearly isnt
working. i suppose maybe that is what i need to do, but i want to have hope for now.
i'm sorry you feel bad but i feel like if pastagang is making you feel like this then i encourage you to step away from the computer and do something else. and its not a reason to take out your bad feelings on other jammers who are creating and sharing things out of love :)
also, nobody is saying "[just] do it". the mantra is "do it", not "[just] do it". the "[just]" is something you have added yourself, perhaps as part of the "self hate" you say you feel.
another mantra is "there is more to life than nudel" though i guess it applies to most pasta things. peace and love
but what, if not "just do it" does "do it" mean in response to a call for assistance?
i have taken a walk since writing the original post, i feel a bit better now but i still dont
really know what else to say. i still feel like either i am unbelievably incompetent or flok
needs to be more accessible or flok needs to die. flok probably needs to die.
this seems like some very black-and-white thinking to me.
"do it" in response to a call for assistance could be someone misunderstanding you. it might also be some gentle / cheeky encouragement for you to give it a try yourself ;) or at least start! (i know you may have already done that but they may not know that)
more likely than anything else, it's [just] the saying of an in-joke that doesn't mean anything! try saying it to other people - you (plural) might enjoy it too!
my advice to you would be to start making something very badly ("bad code only") and to show your struggle publicly. but feel free to ignore this advice ("there are no rules") - i only share it out of love.
i also have some wonderful news to share with you! flok is already dead in both ravioli and nudel 2 for many of the reasons you share above. ravioli is not a flok client anymore. you are welcome to join in if u would like :) <3
persist in your folly
ravioli not being a flok client anymore is music to my ears. i hope the replacement is such
that i can understand it... maybe i will also write a flok replacement some time, but that
will only happen once i finally find a good explanation for how live coding editors synchronize
without losing data. i have already tried making something really badly but noone would use it
anyway so i felt no motivation to continue after a certain point.
unfortunately i doubt it'll be any easier to work with ravioli's code because pastagang only knows how to write bad code XD
but check out froos's recent write up about ravioli its kinda interesting: https://garten.salat.dev/124-block-detection/
anyway come jam with me: dente.cc
[just] a comment from the sidelines, following this discussion: i think we should be a bit careful to wish projects to die
it might be less controversial for pastagang to wish pastagang projects to die, but it feels very arrogant to wish that for other projects,
made by people out of love.
even more so for flok, without which pastagang wouldnt even exist, so i think we should be thankful to the creators for their gift
i'm sorry you're angry about not understanding flok, maybe it helps you to know that most people don't understand it, including the people building flok clients.
nudel started out as a copy of 💖 the vanilla js example 💖, and was largely based on trial and error.
i also wouldn't blame flok for being too hard to understand, or anyone for not having written better documentation.
i get that "do it" can feel bad if you are *not* able to "do it" (yet). but i'd also assume many pastagangers would be happy to help you learn more about the tools.
I only want to respond to the original post on the top from a little different angle. Because I get it as a relatively new developer.
Code is really, really, really, really hard. And sometimes we hit our head against a wall for days, for weeks, or even sometimes for longer.
As a user everything seems easy, but you don't see the amount of times that it didn't work and the amount of in-field or background knowledge needed to create a system like this.
It's okay to be stuck with something. Intruding a codebase, especially one written by other people, takes time,
and it can feel impossible and frustrating sometimes, because you are lacking a piece of information.
Not every concept is spelled out in a codebase, some need to be studied in advance. Others should maybe have the luxury of documentation.
Also, flok has some history, and it's based on Codemirror, and Yjs-Codemirror, and one is hacky and the other is huge.
Instead of trying to understand the full system I suggest narrowing down what exactly you want to know.
Or even better, try to build it, or change it in another application. These are already big enough challenges,
and they will tell you a surprising amount of the big picture.
Good luck with coding and learning things!
PS: You're not inadequate. Some small changes are just as important as big ones! Come contribute to 💖 ravioli 💖 ;)