Welcome to Digital Grove.

My name is Ryan. I’m a professional programmer who works in the gaming industry on development tools (Digital Grove is not affiliated with my employer—it is a personal endeavor).

I grew up seeing computers as some intended them to be—as bicycles for the mind. They don’t seem much like that anymore.

The computing industry is burdened by complexity, centralization, lack of competition, bureaucracy, ineffectual culture, sacrifice of value for the sake of programmer convenience, widespread lack of educational quality, the elimination of general-purpose computing abilities, and a lack of love for the craft. Too much software is corrupt, exploitative, slow, frustrating, poorly designed, and catered toward mindless consumption rather than creativity and production.

But I don’t think that trend needs to set my behavior. I am building Digital Grove to be a counterexample. The project will consist of software built with care, educational material, research, media, and community.

If you’re in favor of this mission, and if you enjoy what I produce as part of this project, please consider subscribing.


Paid Subscriber Benefits

As a paid subscriber, not only will you have access to all paywalled content here on Substack, you’ll also be granted Community access to the Code Depot, and the Discord server. You can obtain access to those—after subscribing—here.

Note: I reserve the right to revoke access to either the Discord community or Code Depot at my discretion, and my discretion alone. This may occur because of unapproved source code leaks, or behavior which actively diminishes the quality of the community. Depending on the circumstances, I may issue a full refund of the paid subscription.


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From-scratch, from-first-principles software techniques, ideas, and projects. Building a new space for better computing.

People

Engine programmer at Epic Games Tools, opinions my own. Working on tools, engines, and games.