Denis Defreyne

Portfolio

This page is a select list of projects that I have done. You might also be interested in my CV/Résumé for my employment history, and my list of ideas, which is the ever-growing breeding ground for many future projects.

See also my list of software and the articles I’ve written.

  1. Talks
  2. Games
  3. Web sites

Talks

A language built with third-party code reuse in mind
Depiction of A language built with third-party code reuse in mind
It’s unthinkable to build a piece of software without using existing libraries and frameworks. But reusing code written by other people comes with risks. Can we create a language that facilitates safe code reuse, across an open-source ecosystem?
The importance of naming
Depiction of The importance of naming
Naming is hard — but at a previous company I worked for, the naming problems were more than just annoying. Based on examples of bad naming, I formulated a set of principles that I consider indispensable for any well-running tech team.
Clean & fast code with enumerators
Ruby’s Enumerator class is a powerful tool for writing code for dealing with streams of data and events. This talk also shows how to effectively use enumerators for slow data sources.
How to memo­ize
Depiction of How to memoize
A journey through the many intricacies of writing a memoization library in Ruby.
Let’s create a programming language!
Depiction of Let’s create a programming language!
Let’s write a parser!
Depiction of Let’s write a parser!
A Small Smalltalk talk
Depiction of A Small Smalltalk talk
I wanted a computer, but all I got was a transistor
Depiction of I wanted a computer, but all I got was a transistor
Simulating a CPU with Ruby
Taming memory: performance-tuning a Crystal application
Creating games with entities and components
Depiction of Creating games with entities and components
Static site generation for the masses
Extending a base product for multiple customers
Static sites with nanoc
Make your web sites faster!
Metaprogramming and DSLs in Ruby

Games

Denis’ Solitaire
Depiction of Denis’ Solitaire
A game of Solitaire for macOS and other desktop operating systems.
Memory
A memory game, written in Crystal using Glove, a game engine I built.
Black and White
Depiction of Black and White
A game made at the Berlin Mini Game Jam on August 31st, 2014.
Verenia
Depiction of Verenia
A point-and-click adventure game. It never made it far. Making games is hard.

Web sites

DenisDefreyne.com
My own web site! You are looking at it right now. It has been online for a long time, in various places, with many different designs.
Nanoc.app
Depiction of Nanoc.app
I built Nanoc to manage my own web site, and then created a web site using Nanoc for Nanoc.
MystOnline.com
Depiction of MystOnline.com
I updated the existing Myst Online web site, replacing Flash and IFRAMEs with modern (for the time) HTML and CSS. The web site shot up in search engine rankings as a result. I improved the look with homemade graphical assets, bringing the site more in line with the game. Lastly, I got together a team of translators and made the web site available in a handful of additional languages.
EuroMysterium.org
I created the web site for EuroMysterium, the European counterpart to Mysterium, the yearly Myst fan convention.
MystBlogs.com
An aggregator for blogs in the Myst/Uru fan community.
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