[HN Gopher] Penrose 3.0
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Penrose 3.0
Author : sestep
Score : 173 points
Date : 2023-07-16 12:05 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (penrose.cs.cmu.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (penrose.cs.cmu.edu)
| kzrdude wrote:
| For me, using Firefox, following the tutorial produces blank
| output. Not sure why.
|
| Clarification: Following the instructions in the Basics chapter
| in the online workspace.
| wodenimoni wrote:
| Testing the tutorial link
| (https://penrose.cs.cmu.edu/docs/tutorial/welcome) locally with
| Firefox 115.0.2 seems okay. If this problem persists, can you
| file an issue about it in our repo:
| (https://github.com/penrose/penrose/issues)?
| [deleted]
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| I'm a bit lost looking at the examples, <snip> ... turns out that
| with uBlock on the examples partially break, the other files
| update but the .substance one does not ... which was very
| confusing to me!
| kzrdude wrote:
| Are you sure it's uBlock related? I disabled uBlock origin for
| the whole site but it still has that behaviour.
| wodenimoni wrote:
| Good catch! Opened an issue to investigate this
| https://github.com/penrose/penrose/issues/1553.
| sestep wrote:
| Sam here (Penrose maintainer and one of the authors of this
| announcement post), AMA :)
| ninepoints wrote:
| I'm a long time TikZ user and have been following penrose since
| the initial video introduction. Really great progress! At this
| point, what do you think an avid TikZ/dot/pgf user might miss
| the most when trying Penrose?
| wodenimoni wrote:
| Nimo here, the other author of the blog post :). Another
| advantage of TikZ is you can use it directly in LaTeX. TeX
| integration is something we care deeply about, so v3
| introduces an export mode compatible with the svg package
| (https://ctan.org/pkg/svg?lang=en). Basically we export SVGs
| with raw <text> elements that LaTeX can style together with
| the rest of the document. More docs here:
| https://penrose.cs.cmu.edu/docs/ref/using#export.
| sestep wrote:
| Thanks! And great question; I'd probably say the main missing
| pieces would be the level of integration and the amount of
| general programming you can do. The former is kind of
| difficult for Penrose to compete with; for instance, to let
| people use Penrose in Overleaf, AFAIK we'd need to get it
| into the TeX Live distribution, which is pretty strict about
| what sorts of code is allowed. Specifically, our optimizer is
| written in Rust which we compile to WebAssembly, neither of
| which currently seem to be supported in the TeX Live build
| system.
|
| The latter is something we're working hard on. We're trying
| to find the right balance between simplicity and
| expressiveness, and starting to explore options beyond our
| trio-DSL approach. We don't have great docs on this yet, but
| we have some experiments with using Penrose as a library in
| combination with SolidJS: https://github.com/penrose/penrose/
| tree/v3.0.0/packages/soli...
| ninepoints wrote:
| Thanks for the response and all that makes sense. These
| days, a lot of the LaTeX and TikZ I write is honestly
| embedded in web and asciidoc content (via custom extensions
| and a lot of shoestring interprocess scripting) so that
| seems perfectly fine. Ironically, I use SolidJS when I
| happen to do web stuff also, so I'll be sure to check that
| out.
| enriquto wrote:
| > AMA
|
| As a mathematician. I cannot get over the fact that a tool
| called Penrose that makes (according to its documentation)
| diagrams, does not, in fact, make Penrose diagrams [0]. Nor
| even Penrose-Carter diagrams [1]
|
| The output looks lovely, and I would like to use this for my
| math notes, but I cannot bear to accept such a disturbing name.
|
| _Question:_ Why did you chose this confusing name? Could you
| justify it in the introduction of the documentation? [2]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penrose_graphical_notation
|
| [1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagramme_de_Penrose-Carter
|
| [2] https://penrose.cs.cmu.edu/docs/ref
| cstrahan wrote:
| FWIW as a non-mathematician: when I hear "Penrose" I think
| "Penrose Diagram". The name association would benefit me as a
| sort of mnemonic: if I saw a binary called _penrose_ on my
| system, I would guess it has something to do with diagrams
| (not necessarily Penrose diagrams). Similarly, if I forgot
| the name of this tool, it would be easy to recall, as there
| aren't too many "____ diagram" word pairs floating around in
| my brain. I give libraries and executables pithy names along
| the same lines, where one word that isn't already in use
| ("Penrose") strongly associates with another more general
| word ("diagram") in my memory.
|
| Look at the VHS tool for example -- it doesn't have anything
| to do with physical VHS tapes, but it does record a scripted
| shell invocation as a GIF for embedding in docs and demos and
| such. Super easy name to remember. See
| https://github.com/charmbracelet/vhs
| wodenimoni wrote:
| Would love to hear what diagrams you'd like to make in your
| notes!
|
| > Why did you chose this confusing name?
|
| The main idea of the project is to generate diagrams from
| mathematical notations. So we want a name that people can
| associate with both "notations" and "diagrams." In addition
| to this, some of us also liked the fact that the name can be
| broken down into "pen" + "rose" :D.
|
| We're really open to suggestions on names if a new name can
| help us spread the words on our core idea and the tool.
| "Escher" was one of the early candidates, too. Let us know!
|
| > Could you justify it in the introduction of the
| documentation?
|
| Great suggestion! Will do.
|
| > As a mathematician. I cannot get over the fact that a tool
| called Penrose that makes (according to its documentation)
| diagrams, does not, in fact, make Penrose diagrams [0]. Nor
| even Penrose-Carter diagrams [1]
|
| We never got around to make some Penrose diagrams in Penrose,
| but Penrose is an extensible platform! If you make a lot of
| them and want to make them in Penrose, join the discord
| (https://discord.com/invite/a7VXJU4dfR) to chat with us. I'd
| love to have some Penrose diagrams in our gallery too ;).
| jahsome wrote:
| Slightly off topic but I'll share my $.02 because you mentioned
| you authored the post. These types of announcements would be so
| much better if they included a brief blurb about what the
| project is near the beginning.
|
| I think these posts get a lot of new eyeballs, and as someone
| who clicks on a lot of "new major release for X" posts, it's
| always an annoying side quest to go and figure out what the
| product is before going back to the post.
|
| Congrats on the launch :)
| lgas wrote:
| At the very least, make the first mention of the product name
| a link to someplace with a description. It amazes me how
| often people skip basic things like this.
| bjornasm wrote:
| Agreed. Its always "Finally we have added xyz support for our
| abc module, now you can just call mnb by using the cba
| function!!" while (I believe) 90% of the people reading that
| just want to know what kind of tool it is.
|
| On topic: This tool to make diagrams using plain text looks
| great. Definately going to see if I can utilize it in a
| project.
|
| Example: https://penrose.cs.cmu.edu/try/?examples=graph-
| domain/other-...
| sestep wrote:
| Good point, thanks! Editing the post now, should have an
| updated version up soon with a blurb.
| btreecat wrote:
| >We are excited to announce Penrose 3.0! We've added many
| exciting diagrams to our collection, reworked our core API, and
| improved support for more complex geometric queries... among many
| other things!
|
| Cool! What is Penrose?
| [deleted]
| PaulHoule wrote:
| System for drawing diagrams, particularly focused on entities
| and relationships.
| capableweb wrote:
| For the future, here is how you can find out yourself:
|
| Click on the element in the top-left corner and it usually
| brings you to the landing page. That's the introduction page
| for most visitors so probably contains useful information if
| you visit a change log/release page but don't know what the
| project is.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| No, that usually brings you to the front of the blog / forum
| / help page (depending on where you already are)
|
| It can be surprisingly difficult to move from blog to product
| page.
| bluepod4 wrote:
| Usually clicking the "logo" in the top left or center
| brings you to the "homepage" or "landing page", not a
| blog/forum/help page. Websites have worked like this for
| decades.
|
| Also, this is an announcement for an _update_. Not an
| announcement for a completely new product launch.
| tsuujin wrote:
| Thanks for confirming that I'm not crazy. I click on a lot
| of these version announcements and I always feel like
| getting to the "what even is this" is surprisingly hard.
| xk_id wrote:
| If editing the url bar to go to the homepage is
| "surprisingly hard", maybe computing isn't for you. Not
| even being ironic.
| troupo wrote:
| It is enough of a friction on mobile for me to very
| rarely do that.
|
| However, if you can't make the logo of your product go to
| the landing page, then computing is definitely not for
| you. Also not being ironic.
| xk_id wrote:
| You know what they say: focus on yourself.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| Nobody has time to do research on every article they read
| in a day. There's no excuse for not giving a short
| description in an announcement.
| tsuujin wrote:
| Mobile workflow:
|
| 1. Click HN link
|
| 2. See announcement, want product details
|
| 3. Click on logo... goes to blog homepage
|
| 4. Can't edit url in in-app browser, so click to open in
| safari
|
| 5. Click to open url bar
|
| 6. Figure out what the home address likely is, mostly by
| guessing
|
| 7. Scan past giant hero to find an actual "about page",
| maybe this is obvious maybe it isn't
|
| 8. Actually get info I want
|
| 9. Close tab
|
| 10. Close safari
|
| 11. Open HN app again
|
| 12. Read release notes with actual context
|
| If you can't see how that is an annoyingly laborious
| process, easily resolved with a simple link in the
| opening paragraph, maybe logic isn't for you. Not even
| being ironic.
| bluepod4 wrote:
| Did OP update the site or something? Clicking the logo on
| mobile redirects to the home/landing page as one would
| expect from a website.
| tsuujin wrote:
| Yeah, this site isn't bad; the comment I was initially
| responding to was more a general commentary on a trend
| that admittedly doesn't really apply here.
|
| It'd still be nice to get a summary "about" link but at
| least you can go right home.
| wpietri wrote:
| This is attacking the problem in the wrong place. There are a
| relatively small number of writers of update announcements
| but a large number of readers. The readers have relatively
| low motivation to deeply investigate any one announced
| product. The product announcers generally have significant
| motivation to get the right readers to check out the product.
| So the correct solution here is for writers to realize that
| they need to address not just current users, but to spare a
| thought for the much, much, much larger number of people who
| are not yet familiar with the product. Even better, that's
| exactly what the writer did:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36748426
| PaulHoule wrote:
| That separation of domain, substance and style is genius.
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(page generated 2023-07-16 23:00 UTC)