Fornjot

Last week, I said that I expected to either wrap up #568, or discover new problems that prevent that. Well, I didn't discover new problems exactly, but I did discover new opportunities! As it turns out, that was just as effective in preventing me from making progress on #568.

It started early in the week, when some thoughts I'd been having over the last weeks coalesced into the insight that local forms can be managed much more simply (#691). Simplifying things always pays dividends, as it makes whatever else I'm working on easier. Hence, I decided to start implementing that immediately.

While doing that, I ran into a problem pretty quickly: the current, somewhat hacky, way of handling surface orientation got in the way, so I started developing a plan for dealing with that (#695). And while I was already in deep thinking mode, inspiration struck again, and I came up with a way for simplifying the core data structures of fj-kernel (#696, #697).

So, definitely more of a "thinking" week than a "doing" week. It doesn't feel quite as productive, but you need both kinds to make progress long-term.

Meanwhile, @kamirr fixed some build system issues, and @A-Walrus improved the usability of the Fornjot app's CLI arguments.

Sponsors

Fornjot is supported by @webtrax-oz, @lthiery, @Yatekii, @martindederer, @hobofan, @ahdinosaur, @thawkins, @bollian, and my other awesome sponsors. Thank you!

If you want Fornjot to be stable and sustainable long-term, please consider supporting me too.

End-user improvements

Improvements to Fornjot and its documentation that are visible to end-users.

• Rename fj crate's serialization feature to serde (#688)
• Improve usability of --parameters (#692; special thanks to first-time contributor @A-Walrus!)

Ecosystem improvements

Improvements to the Fornjot ecosystem that are relevant to developers who are building on top of Fornjot components.

fj-kernel

• Add Curve constructors for surface axes (#690)
• Remove Edge::new (#693)
• Move all objects to new objects module (#694)

Internal Improvements

Improvements that are relevant to developers working on Fornjot itself.

• Fix some build system issues (#685; thanks to @kamirr!)
• Update dependencies (#686, #687)
• Clean up coherence validation infrastructure (#689)

Issue of the Week

Fornjot's input/camera control behavior has improved a lot recently, but there are still some annoyances. If you enjoy fiddling with behavior at the interface between human and computer, why not take a look at #677 - Improve zooming behavior?

Outlook

My immediate priority has switched to implementing all the simplifications I came up with last week. Yes, this will delay the completion of #568, but I think it will be worth it. As I said above, simplifications pay dividends. If I don't do them now, I'll just make everything more difficult going forward.