Malleable Computing: Automating GitHub Issues with Emacs
Malleable Computing, Emacs, and You
I automated my manual workflow of copying GitHub issues into Org Agenda by building a custom tool in Emacs. Leveraging the GitHub CLI and Elisp, I created a lightweight solution that treats external commands as services, demonstrating how malleable computing allows users to rapidly prototype and adapt their digital tools without complex development cycles.
Malleable software takes advantage of combinatorial explosion in that a desired subset of behavior can likely be found within the state space of combining existing libraries with different programs.
- sroerick
This is a good discussion of these principles. Largely inspired by Emacs, I built an interpreted lisp which runs in a web server and stores the AST Postgres. It gives me this kind of malleable computing and a Lispy feel with very little overhead.
Instead of calling an API, agents can just use functions in a REPL. They can also write new views and improve the program if they run into an issue. Honestly, pretty amazing stuff.
Being able to design a program specifically for the workflow I want is pretty neat. There's some vibeslop jank, but Emacs is a little bit jank too.
- gritzko
JavaScript did this for the Web back in the day. I work on a malleable git-compatible SCM right now. First I put all the performance-critical parts into a native lib, then happily built my own git(hub) in JavaScript. Tastes differ, someone else may build it completely differently. I believe this is the right architecture for the LLM age.
- kickingvegas
OP here. Happy to answer any questions about my post in this thread.
- __d
There’s an interesting middle ground: not fully malleable software, where the end user has full customisation ability but requires full programming skill, but eg the Unix tool model where prebuilt utilities can be composed with a simple syntax.
Pre-existing (or importable) ELisp functions are kinda similar, just a slightly higher level of user skill.
- cfiggers
AutoHotkey adds a malleable computing layer to Windows.