GNU Poke 4.0 & Poke-ELF 1.0 Released For Dealing With Binary Data

[phoronix]

Phoronix: GNU Poke 4.0 & Poke-ELF 1.0 Released For Dealing With Binary Data

GNU Poke 4.0 has been released after a year in development for enhancing this open-source software that serves as an interactive editor for binary data accompanied by its own procedural programming language...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNU-Poke-4.0-Poke-ELF-1.0

[byteabit]

Looks cool: https://jemarch.net/poke-4.0-manual/poke.html

[JMB9]

Looks cool: https://jemarch.net/poke-4.0-manual/poke.html

Seems that one should really read it before starting with it - and some parts should be knwon when writing about it, e.g.:
"First of all we have poke, the program. Since “poke” is a very common English word, when the context is not clear
we either use the full denomination GNU poke, or quote the word using some other notation.
Then we have Poke, with upper case P, which is the name of the domain-specific programming language
implemented by poke, the program."
Learning never stops ... ; )

[dark-star]

Their domain-specific language is also very poorly designed, with bits and pieces "added on" as the tool progressed. The syntax is awful and totally non-intuitive. I don't see why they didn't use Lua or even Guile (as it's a GNU tool) for it... Also they intentionally used little-known (and little-tested) libraries for their main JIT component, to make porting to other operating systems harder.

I like the idea of the tool, as it is something I have been searching for quite a while. But the implementation is terrible and it's basically unportable (or at least not easily portable) to anything that is not GNU (i.e. LLVM instead of gcc, *BSD or Windows instead of Linux, etc.). Plus, if you dare to ask about these things on their IRC, you get the usual RMS-style rant on how you dare use such a product that doesn't respect your freedom etc...