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experiments/2024-10-30/README.md

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+# Fornjot - Experiment 2024-10-30
+
+## About
+
+This experiment is packaged as a single application. Run it with `cargo run`.
+This should open a window and also create a 3MF file in this directory.
+
+![A screenshot of this prototype; a cube in the background, a list of operations in the foreground.](screenshot.png)
+
+Once you started the prototype, you should see the hardcoded geometry in a
+background, and a list with operations in front. You can select other operations
+using the "up" and "down" cursor keys, which should display the geometry as of
+this operation.
+
+## Context
+
+It has become clear, that Fornjot's current architecture is at a local maximum.
+I also think it is too complicated for what it does, and suspect that a simpler
+architecture would serve us much better going forward.
+
+While it's certainly not impossible to address this piecemeal, through
+incremental improvements (which is the approach that I usually prefer), I don't
+think this is the best course of action.
+
+Because while I don't consider the architecture to be very good, it is still
+consistent and self-reinforcing. Whenever I try to simplify one aspect, I run
+into the problem that it's there for a reason; that other aspects of the
+architecture depend on it being the way it is.
+
+And while I haven't figured out yet, how to break out of this situation, I do
+have quite a few unproven ideas on how an improved architecture would look like,
+redesigned from the ground up using the experience I've gained over the last few
+years.
+
+This experiment is intended to be the first in a series, meant to prove out
+those ideas. The results should provide a clearer picture of what is possible,
+and how the current architecture can be evolved.
+
+## Setup
+
+I believe that one of the core mistakes that I made in designing Fornjot, was to
+design it as a batch system. API calls come in on one side, geometry comes out
+the other. What happens in between is not quite a black box, but it's not very
+transparent either. This is a big pain, whenever something goes wrong.
+
+To kick off the upcoming phase of experimentation, I wanted to figure out what
+an interactive core could look like. One that allows you to see every single
+step taken to build up the final result.
+
+I wanted to do this based on a very simple geometry representation, a triangle
+mesh, but with a view to later (in a follow-up experiment) expand that with a
+layer of topological information.
+
+## Result
+
+I am generally quite happy with the result, although the experiment took longer
+than I wanted it to.
+
+It wasn't clear that adapting the existing renderer to the needs of this
+prototype would be economical (I spent some time working on that, which made me
+think it wasn't), so I decided to write a new one. Most of the work went into
+that. I'm going to reuse it for follow-up experiments, and if this approach
+works out, I hope I can merge any improvements into the existing renderer.
+
+Relative to that, very little work went into the interactive core. I came up
+with a design that I liked relatively quickly, so that was that. I'm not going
+to describe the results here, as I have documented the code instead.
+
+If you're interested in details, take a look at the code itself, or check out
+the documentation (run `cargo doc --open` in this directory).