My Experience of building Bytebeat player in Zig
19 days ago
- #bytebeat
- #audio-programming
- #Zig
- Bytebeat is music generated from short programs using bitwise operations with a single variable 't' representing time.
- Bytebeat was discovered by viznut in 2011 and uses a simpler audio format reminiscent of early PC sound cards.
- The author built a bytebeat project in Zig, facing challenges with outdated libraries and memory management.
- Zig lacks native string support, leading to deeper exploration of memory allocation and structs in Zig.
- The project involved implementing a Pratt Parser for expression parsing, revealing performance issues in the browser due to inefficient memory management.
- Arena Allocator was used to optimize memory management by allocating and freeing memory in large chunks.
- Attempts to design a retro 8-bit synth UI were challenging, highlighting the difficulty of graphics without modern abstractions.
- The project was a valuable learning experience in parsing, evaluation, and memory management in Zig.
- A Rick Roll example in bytebeat and a GitHub link to the project are provided for further exploration.