Maxine Alexander
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maxinethemooshroom.bsky.social
Maxine Alexander
@maxinethemooshroom.bsky.social
550 followers 90 following 120 posts
General and Embedded Software Engineer that likes to take on weird projects!

LOOKING FOR WORK!
Located in Pittsburgh

Post-Humanist, Feminist, Absurdist

Poly
💜💜💜 Wifey~ @rummik.bsky.social
🖤🖤🖤 Gf~ @softlavendarcow.bsky.social
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maxinethemooshroom.bsky.social
Hot take: regex is an esoteric programming language.

es·o·ter·ic
/ˌesəˈterik/
Intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest.

And yes, regular expressions are programs!

#software #programming #regex
A screenshot of regex101.com, with a very long regex string and a sample text to run the regex on.
May 27, 2025 at 9:59 PM
maxinethemooshroom.bsky.social
Think this bug report is overkill?
Nahhhhhhhhhhh, probably not.
www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=148...

#picotron #pico-8 #reverseengineering #decompilation
A screenshot of a bug report for picotron A screenshot of a bug report for picotron that includes assembly from picotron's decompiled source
May 8, 2025 at 10:08 AM
maxinethemooshroom.bsky.social
An early draft to the intro section of Pastel's datasheet!

#pastel-pfp #fantasyconsole #retrogaming #lua #wasm #rustlang
A screenshot from a draft of Pastel's datasheet that reads: Chapter 1. Introduction In order to properly document Pastel, its usage, and how it works, we must first understand what Pastel is. The problem with that though is that Pastel isn’t one thing. In fact, Pastel can be described as 4 separate (but interconnected) layers of a tech stack: 1. A fantasy hardware platform 2. A fantasy computer / video-game console 3. A fantasy operating system 4. A fantasy desktop environment Each of these 4 things are described as “fantasy”. But if you’re here reading a datasheet, what does that mean? Surely it cannot mean that Pastel is fictional, since you’re here learning to use it. Because there is a lot of confusion to be had for anyone not familiar with how the term is used here, and to get everyone on the same page, let’s define “fantasy” more formally. 1.1. What Does “Fantasy” Mean? In this context, “fantasy” describes any system that is self-consistent and usable, but not physically manufactured or limited to existing commercial hardware. A fantasy platform may define entirely novel hardware, instruction sets, or operating environments, so long as those definitions are internally coherent and executable in software. Most “fantasy consoles” are creative playgrounds; they are constrained virtual machines designed to evoke the feelings often associated with retro hardware and encourage artistic expression. They prioritize ease, simplicity, quick iteration, and aesthetic charm over deep simulation or system fidelity. Pastel fits the fantasy definition quite nicely, given that it’s not a physical device you can buy, and its software stack is purpose-built for its environment. But we weren’t content with simply recreating the feeling of old hardware. Instead, we want Pastel to simulate not only the idea of a console, but define and enforce the complete system architecture of one. Text was cut short by alt-text length limit, apologies. A continuation of the introduction: 1.2. What Is Pastel, Anyways? Now that we’ve defined fantasy, let’s discuss how the term applies to individual components of Pastel’s tech stack. Because Pastel has multiple levels of both hardware and software, we’ll go from lowest level to highest. 1.2.1. A Fantasy Hardware Platform Implemented in silicon or software, Pastel has a lot of hardware to talk about! We have multiple CPU cores, a cache hierarchy, hardware-enabled virtual memory, shared system memory, a GPU, and more! When discussing how being fantasy affects the hardware of Pastel though, we’re aiming for the answer “it doesn’t” as much as possible. Even though the hardware is all implemented in software, the goal is for that to be functionally irrelevant. When considering the “how” of hardware constraints in a software implementation, the system bus comes to mind. It could be left as an abstract metaphorical construct with various system components talking directly to each other. And in any other project where realism and depth aren’t the explicit goal, it very probably would. Pastel, however, cannot; waiting on bus access for data transmission across the system isn’t just for realism— it was the core limitation of the Nintendo 64 console. Because several components run in parallel, a Mutex is a convenient method for simulating bus contention and control acquisition. Following that, any given bus interface must be locked as well. If a CPU core wants to “talk to” the memory controller, a lock must be acquired on the CPU bus interface, then a lock must be acquired on the bus, then a lock must be acquired on the memory controller’s bus interface. That’s a simplified explanation of the process, but illustrative enough of the parallels between acquiring mutex locks and bus contention and control acquisition. An image describing the hardware components and layout of Pastel. Among these are the Lunar core, which runs Lua bytecode, and the POWER core, which runs wasm bytecode. 1.2.1.1. Key Hardware Features Key features of the hardware platform include: - 32-bit System (registers, bus width) - Lunar Core @ TBD MHz - POWER Core @ TBD MHz - System Core / “Hardware”-implemented Kernel Subroutines @ Native Clock Speed - Bytecode Compilers (first-class language support for the following) - Lua - luac - teal - picotron - WASM - c/c++ - rust - Pastel Shader Language (PSL) - Virtual CPU Caches - L1 Data: TBD KB (Lunar + POWER + System) - L1 Instruction: TBD KB (Lunar + POWER) - L2 Shared: TBD KB - Exclusive inclusion, so total cache area is L1D*3 + L1I*2 + L2 - Hardware Support for Virtual Addressing - 16MB RAM (expandable with cartridges) - DMA Controller - Memory Controller - Descriptor Engine - Coherency Engine - Interrupts/Events - Graphics Core - TBD KB tMEM - PSL Microcode Runtime - TBD KB dMEM - TBD KB iMEM - OpenGL Passthru (OGLP) - Audio Module - TBD - Peripherals - Cartridges - Can extend hardware - Game carts extend hardware by providing extra storage (where the game data exists) - 4 MB address-space each, maximum - Drivers are loaded from the boot sector of each cartridge - Distribution Format: TBD - Up to 16 Carts can be used at once
May 1, 2025 at 7:30 PM
maxinethemooshroom.bsky.social
Did someone say high-fidelity fantasy desktop?

#pastel #fantasyconsole #lua #wasm #rustlang
An image describing the hardware components and layout of Pastel. Among these are the Lunar core, which runs Lua bytecode, and the POWER core, which runs wasm bytecode.
May 1, 2025 at 4:02 PM
maxinethemooshroom.bsky.social
Currently focusing on a documentation update for peacock non its core libraries! Enjoying writing it!

#software #rustlang #rust-lang #peacock-rs
A screenshot of Maxine's IDE, split down the middle vertically. On the left is the source markdown for documenting a struct for the Peacock framework, on the right is the rendered form of the source on the left.
January 26, 2025 at 9:20 PM
maxinethemooshroom.bsky.social
I'm having fun developing peacock's examples :3

#software #rustlang #rust-lang #peacock-rs
A screenshot of some source code using the Peacock framework to create a button that counts the number of times it has been clicked and then updates its text content to display that count.
January 21, 2025 at 3:34 AM
maxinethemooshroom.bsky.social
Some pre-alpha testing of peacock! In the process of a rewrite to make the code much cleaner!

Still need to implement the rest of the widgets, add event subscriptions, and add support for applying CSS stylesheets (courtesy of crest) to widgets.

#software #rustlang #rust-lang #peacock-rs
A screenshot of a terminal running cargo commands for Peacock, a rust-based GUI framework that uses XML for structure, CSS for styling, and Rust for behaviour. Also included in the screenshot is some source code for an example Peacock application.
January 20, 2025 at 11:11 PM
maxinethemooshroom.bsky.social
Crest is coming along VERY nicely! I recently added support for arbitrary css properties (they just receive no validation whatsoever) and optional values for css properties! Pretty happy with performance this early too! Acid tests are going great!
#software #rustlang #rust-lang #peacock-rs
A screenshot of a terminal with tests and general info on Crest, as well as performance benchmarks comparing Crest to LightningCSS.
December 22, 2024 at 12:00 PM
maxinethemooshroom.bsky.social
So this is pretty crazy (crest is a custom css parser I've been working on)
#rustlang #rust-lang #software #peacock-rs
A screenshot of a terminal displaying performance benchmarks of lightningcss and crest
December 14, 2024 at 8:10 AM
maxinethemooshroom.bsky.social
A snippet, though validation of token stream orders is the hard part, you can't get very complex in PEGs, unfortunately
A screenshot of a PEG grammar file for the pest crate for rust, used to describe the CSS language, with grades for each rule on how well that rule complies with the CSS syntax standard.
December 9, 2024 at 10:36 PM
maxinethemooshroom.bsky.social
Made this blinkie for my vaporwave-themed personal website :D
This one's customized for posting to bsky but the original is here:
maxthemooshroom.github.io/static/img/b...
#bsky #bluesky #vaporwave #blinkie
December 7, 2024 at 8:37 PM
maxinethemooshroom.bsky.social
Getting closer and closer!! at-rules are currently unsupported because they modify how CSS works, and the default CSS behaviour isn't even done, and not all CSS attributes are implemented, but this is getting pretty close to being ready for testing!
#rustlang #rust-lang #software #webdev #peacock-rs
source code that showcases a partial function interpreting css attributes from string representations of the attribute name and values (eg "color: red;")
December 4, 2024 at 7:13 PM
maxinethemooshroom.bsky.social
Love all the people I've got in mine!
(I stole your alt text Scott :P)
A circle graph of all the people I've recently interacted with on bsky generated by @skircle.bsky.social
November 25, 2024 at 4:13 AM
maxinethemooshroom.bsky.social
Working on mapping iced-rs widget properties to CSS properties. Some things are a direct, one-to-one translation. Other things are.... less-so.

Thoughts?

🦚🦚🦚🦚🦚🦚🦚🦚🦚
#rust-lang #software #peacock
a spreadsheet detailing how properties from iced-rs widgets could map onto standard css properties
November 16, 2024 at 5:48 AM
maxinethemooshroom.bsky.social
After a LOT of trial and error with different interface designs, this is what I've settled on for defining the CSS API! I can understand what's going on at a glance, and the code isn't terrible, so that's good enough for me! Thoughts?
🦚🦚🦚🦚🦚🦚🦚🦚
#rust-lang #software #peacock
source code of peacock-crest using its own CSS attribute API, next to the css spec (provided for reference)
November 15, 2024 at 2:56 AM
maxinethemooshroom.bsky.social
More progress! Trying to make the amount of rust needed to use the framework as minimal as possible :D

CSS is also in the works! Parser written, still need a standardized API for the css core-library and a large css file with all of the default values to be applied before others.

Keep an eye out!
An image containing XML and rust-lang source that describes an also-displayed GUI application
October 30, 2024 at 9:17 PM
maxinethemooshroom.bsky.social
VERY exciting progress on the framework I'm working on! The XML is parsed into Rust source within `build.rs`, and it's simple to hook into associated events!
#rust-lang #rust #xml
A screenshot of a VS Code window, linux terminal window, and a window of an example application. The VS Code window contains XML and some minimal rust code. The terminal contains the command running the rust code, and some command-line output responding to events in the example application. The example application contains only a button that says "Hwllo!", as described in the XML.
October 25, 2024 at 12:22 AM