Post by @psf@oldbytes.space

2026-01-06 07:20 UTC

principles of software distillation: Old software is usually small and new software is usually large. A distilled program can be old or new, but is always small, and is powerful by its choice of ideas, not its implementation size. A distilled program has the conciseness of an initial version and the refinement of a final version. A distilled program is a finished work, but remains hackable due to its small size, allowing it to serve as the starting point for new works. Many people write programs, but few stick with a program long enough to distill it.

Replies (5)

@psf@oldbytes.space 2026-01-06 18:50

The best example of distilled software that comes to mind is Project #Oberon, which was distilled by Niklaus Wirth (and others) for most of Wirth's lifetime (if you count his earlier time working on Pascal and Modula as earlier steps of the distillation). https://projectoberon.net/ There are also #Forth and #Lisp, of course, but they've been distilled in many different directions by many people so there isn't a clear unifying idea. You have to get more specific. Now, Chuck Moore's evolution of Forth -> MachineForth -> ColorForth certainly counts as distillation. #LuaLang also comes to mind. Porting the most modern Lua to the 188K TI-92+ calculator (last year) is what sold me on the idea that widely used modern software can remain useful on the oldest computers. That said, Lua is not entirely immune to bloat: I had to roll back from v5.4 to v5.2 to cut my memory usage from ~170K to ~128K 😉

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@holdenweb@freeradical.zone 2026-01-06 07:53

@psf@oldbytes.space or is it just that new software continually increases in size?

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@kirtai@tech.lgbt 2026-01-06 12:16

@psf@oldbytes.space I love this definition. Distilled software.

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@8r3n7@mstdn.ca 2026-01-06 14:07

@psf@oldbytes.space Could a programming language also be considered in light of this principle? Minimal syntax? Minimal lexical tokens? Focussed on a particular kind of task or problem? What about data types? Surely there are refined, precise, and specific data types (including classes), but also bloated and complicated ones? And thus a relationship between those types and the programs which operate upon them? One might consider—and judge—larger applications by the degree to which they honour—if not exhibit—distillation. An application meant to interat with large data models must have a large and diverse set of functions, modules, or sub-programs. But maintaining a clean separation between the smaller operations, which could be highly distilled, and the larger management tasks, could improve the orderliness and comprehensibility of the composite application.

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@fmn@mastodon.social 2026-01-06 19:13

@psf@oldbytes.space very elegant. most of the stuff said about the craft, often falls apart when you change an angle a bit. this just feels right. as a side note, i also appreciate how dave thomas (of "the pragmatic programmer" fame) writes, talks about software.

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