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This will be a more informal brain-dump of my thoughts on how my GSoC project went. This was written around the same time as the more formal Final Report (i.e. before I've recieved my final evaluation), but I did wait to do a final pass and proofread until after the final evaluation. During the mentor's evaluation period, I took the first real break I've taken since around March or April, mostly so I could look at literally any other code at all. I've been tinkering with an RTS engine I've had on the backburner for a long time, as well as a very silly Python project that I'll probably make a post about soon.

In any case, I'm pleased to say that I passed my final evaluation! I have some additional awesome news. Just before my project ended, I recieved a surprise DM notifying me that a few people had nominated me for Rust Compiler Team membership! I accepted, and I'm very excited to keep contributing to Rust for the foreseeable future. It maybe sounds silly, but as someone who hasn't like... done a whole lot with their life, or had a whole lot of opportunities, seeing my name on the official website alongside the names of people whose blogs I've been reading for years made me tear up a little.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I started a Google Summer of Code project to (more or less) dig tests/debuginfo out of tech debt.

The original plan was to create and entirely new test suite. Tests would slowly be translated over, and then the old test suite would be removed. There was a bit more complexity with this option, between the plumbing for the new test suite, and the coordination between the two. There was also the matter of preserving the behavior of the tests that do more than just print variables (e.g. stepping behavior in macros).

Since my last post, my work regarding Rust debugging as slowed a bit. The fixes to the visualizers assuaged my annoyance enough to finish some side projects. Crafting Interpreters, and a rewrite-it-in-rust of a python tool that turns Kindle Scribe notebook files into SVGs, and some other silly stuff. The break was a fat reminder of how weak the debugging experience still is, and it has worked wonders to refresh my spite-based motivation. Before I hang my "It doesn't have to be this way. We make our own tools." poster back up, I want to do a bit of a brain dump.

I'm a big fan of eink tablets. I read a lot, I write a lot, I prefer handwritten notes, it's a match made in heaven. I've been using a Kindle Scribe for the past several years - I probably used it as much or more than my phone. Recently, I upgraded to a Supernote Nomad, which has been a lovely experience so far.

One thing that always bothered me about the Scribe is how subpar its notebook exporting is. I don't want to have to be online to do it, I want to be able to do it from my computer rather than my phone, and I want the output file to look exactly like the note I wrote on the screen. Amazon is 0 for 3 on that. Luckily, someone has already solved this problem with a third party app, and I was able to learn a lot from their implementation.

The SuperNote has its own proprietary format for its notebooks, so I figured I'd give it a look. This is mostly going to be about the SuperNote format, but the Scribe format will be my main point of reference.