rose/devlog/2025-06-25-The-roof.md

Putting It All Under A Hood

Date: 2025-06-25

Goals and expectations

Installing the roof.

Results

Done.

Much, much later than I'd like...

What happened?

Drained of energy? Lost momentum? Perhaps...

I was afraid to come back to this project, fearing that I've already lost it. Funny how it seems in hindsight, but that was what I thought before I began typing the code. I was afraid that I've lost it, more afraid that it won't work, and even more afraid that all of this is just the work of my vanity... I needed confirmation. But as I worked my fingers on the keyboard, I found that the confirmation is in doing this itself.

And I also wrote a bit of framework for THORN, in C++, for a full-on interpreter. Then, I discovered that I've been heading in the wrong direction - this is not what THORN should be in the first place, the most important aspect of THORN is to create a toolset (no matter how) for testing, not to create the tools from scratch. That realization has actually made me rethink this entire project. What if I'm rebuilding the wheel in a way that nobody cares about?

But afterwards, it became clear that people do care, and I care even more, it's what I prepared myself for, and what I wanted to do, and something that I still want to do.

So, here I am, back to work.

Reflections

1. Just do it. The people that really care about it will care, it will matter to someone, don't spend time looking for that someone, do what you need to do and let them come to you.
2. Play the plan. ROSE had a solid plan, so does THORN, play the plan, and the rest is bonus, not required. That's what led me to dropping CC and other features for ROSE in the first place, and what led me to put aside making a full interpreter for THORN in the near term.

Final thoughts

Keep it alive. Keep doing it until you complete it. Then look for the people that can truly appreciate what you're doing.

Next steps

I might be stepping away from the ROSE repo for some time, the next step is to build THORN.

But it doesn't mean I've decided to ditch ROSE. NO! This is to ensure that future ROSE development can be on track and protected against bugs!