Dreamberd

Hello investors and stake-holders (and community).

Today on this very day we announce our highly successful pre-seed round.

*We're the best!* Please remember that.

The damage

A whopping 42 of you invested a total of £460.18 in the DreamBerd Foundation. As promised, all your money has gone towards fighting conversion therapy.

*We're against conversion in all its forms, whether that's implicitly interpreting a number as a string, or [making a trans person kill themselves](https://www.mind.org.uk/news-campaigns/news/it-can-completely-destroy-a-person-how-mind-plans-to-make-mps-understand-the-devastating-effects-of-conversion-therapy/).*

As such, we've now donated **£460.18 to the [Stonewall charity](https://www.stonewall.org.uk/our-work/campaigns/ban-conversion-therapy)**. Thank you for making this possible!



For full transparency, we've posted up [full anonymised info](https://github.com/TodePond/DreamBerd/tree/main/docs/investment/pre-seed) about the fundraise. Keep us honest by checking that your investment has been included! Unfortunately the [sweet wrapper deal](https://github.com/TodePond/DreamBerd/releases/tag/v181.81#fn-1) fell through due to logistical issues.

The moment

Did you miss a chance to invest? Don't worry! Nothing is stopping you from [donating directly to Stonewall](https://donorbox.org/support-stonewall) right now. Or if you prefer, simply find your nearest queer person, and ask for advice on how to help.

If you don't know any queer people then maybe you should.

The future

The internet is a strange place. It brings out the best and worst in people, myself included. What does it bring out in you?

See you next week,
Lu x

<img width="1094" alt="image" src="https://github.com/TodePond/DreamBerd/assets/15892272/c8e87508-8c16-4f3d-a1b8-6c2387c3f67e">

> In the true spirit of open source, this investor email is shared with everyone.

Hello DreamBerd investors (all 29 of you).

First of all, thank you for your money. As of today, we've raised £181.81 and also a sweet wrapper[^1].

**And now, we're happy to announce what your money will be spent on.**

But first... a community update!

Community update

DreamBerd's investment round went viral on micro-blogging network, mastodon. That's where the vast majority of fundraising & discussion happened.

As an after-thought, it was also cross-posted to [Elon Musk's X](https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/10/05/x-twitter-report-system-transphobia/) on twitter dot com. A small number of people enjoyed the 'sloppy seconds' of the event over there.

What your money will be spent on

Your money will be donated to the [Stonewall charity](https://www.stonewall.org.uk/). This will help to prevent the DreamBerd creator from losing their human rights, allowing maintenance of the project to continue.

This has been part of the DreamBerd docs for a [long time](https://github.com/TodePond/DreamBerd/releases/tag/v0.9.9.9.9.9.9.9.9d). Even so, most influencers suspiciously [skip](https://youtu.be/tDexugp8EmM?t=21m36s) that section when doing their read-through.

In the past, we've [tried](https://x.com/TodePond/status/1410195019403759621?s=20) [several](https://x.com/TodePond/status/1542450085065261056?s=20) [times](https://x.com/TodePond/status/1342448997735215104?s=20) to [raise money](https://x.com/TodePond/status/1277194772432764928?s=20) for [similar causes](https://universeodon.com/TodePond/110637724975609602). Unfortunately, all of these attempts fell flat. Very few people in the tech world seem interested in donating to an LGBT+ charity.

*But everyone seems keen to donate to an imaginary programming language.*

Projected growth

Following this announcement, we expect a slight change in growth.

Some people will become more keen to invest, and will donate more money. Others will become disinterested, and will quietly slip away. A small number of people will become actively offended.

Whatever you decide to do — we fully support you. Please continue/stop promoting DreamBerd. We do/don't want your good/bad vibes in our community. We hope you have a lovely/awful day.

A message from our founder

Stonewall is currently campaigning to get conversion therapy banned. If you don't know what conversion therapy is... It's like JavaScript type coercion, except it happens to queer people instead of strings.

Unfortunately, my government [refuses](https://www.stonewall.org.uk/our-work/campaigns/ban-conversion-therapy) to do anything about it. Our prime minister prefers to go on [anti-trans rants](https://x.com/redstreamnet/status/1709893999245582613?s=20).

Banning conversion therapy would be the absolute bare minimum. It's a form of psychological torture and **it happens to more people than you think**. For example, it's how I ended up as NaN-binary.

So...

_**🎵 [Invest in DreamBerd](https://dreamberd.computer)! have some fun! support esoteric programming! and fight conversion therapy! 🎵**_

> Invest now at [dreamberd.computer](https://dreamberd.computer). All of your money will be given to the Stonewall charity.

Thanks for reading this week's release notes. See you next week.

[^1]: sweet wrapper by verbal agreement only

v$.$
We tried to keep this one under wraps but the _hype is too strong_.

**The rumours are true! DreamBerd is raising a pre-seed round.**

We already have some big players on the table.

• £10 - Sunil Pai (creator of [partykit](https://www.partykit.io/))
• £10 - Alex Dytrych (creator of [infinite scroll](https://alex.dytry.ch/toys/infinite-scroll/))
• $35 - David Sheldrick (creator of [patch-package](https://github.com/ds300/patch-package))
• sweet wrapper[^1] - Steve Ruiz (creator of [tldraw](https://tldraw.com))
• £1 - Lu Wilson (creator of [DreamBerd](https://github.com/TodePond/DreamBerd))

If you're interested in investing in DreamBerd, feel free to book a call via my [calendly](https://calendly.com/DreamBerd). But move fast - it's likely to fill up quickly. That's how hot DreamBerd is right now! 🔥

Or if you're already convinced, simply head over to [dreamberd.computer](http://dreamberd.computer), and pick an amount that works for you. Then enjoy your new life as a DreamBerd investor!

**Remember:** Being a good investor isn't about making money. It's about having the best portfolio. Add DreamBerd to your arsenal *today*!

A message from our founder

> Hi, it's Lu Wilson here, CEO of the DreamBerd Foundation.
>
> Your valuable investment will be used to ensure the continued development of DreamBerd, the perfect programming language.
>
> Unfortunately, maintaining DreamBerd has become a costly task. The language has become so popular that I now receive thousands of [incomplete DreamBerd programs by email](https://github.com/TodePond/DreamBerd/tree/main#ai) everyday. This has become too much for me to handle alone.
>
> _With your investment money, I'll be able to tackle the growing backlog of emails by paying for Replit's child labour services!_
>
> Thanks, and thanks for tuning into this week's DreamBerd update.

[^1]: sweet wrapper by verbal agreement only

[Last week](https://github.com/TodePond/DreamBerd/releases/tag/v1.0-alpha), we announced the arrival of the world's first [DreamBerd interpreter](https://github.com/vivaansinghvi07/dreamberd-interpreter), created by [Vivaan Singhvi](https://vivaansinghvi07.github.io/). [As promised](https://github.com/TodePond/DreamBerd/releases/tag/v3.0), [£99](https://www.dreamberd.computer/investment/pre-seed-extension/) was donated to his charity of choice, [Second Harvest Food Bank](https://secondharvestetn.org/).

But don't worry! There's still one more bounty to claim.

- £99 to a charity of your choice if you create a COMPLETE dreamberd implementation, including implicit strings, automatic insertion, time travel, and everything else.

But don't worry! If that sounds too hard, you might be interested in one of these brand new bounties from our brand new bounty program.

The DreamBerd Bounty Program

- £99 to a charity of your choice if you publish an academic paper that is primarily about dreamberd in a legitimate academic institution.
- £99 to a charity of your choice if you get something primarily about dreamberd to the top of hackernews. You can be the poster, the creator, or both.
- £99 to a charity of your choice if you present an in-person talk primarily about dreamberd to over 99 people.
- £99 to a charity of your choice if you get a dreamberd tattoo.
- £99 to a charity of your choice if you do a read-through of dreamberd to a stream of over 99 people and you [actually read the part you're contractually obliged to](https://github.com/TodePond/DreamBerd?tab=readme-ov-file#contributing).
- £99 to a charity of your choice if you write a post primarily about dreamberd on any microblogging platform that gets over 99 likes.
- £99 to a charity of your choice if you are a multi-millionaire and publicly state on camera "when will programmers stop making decisions for our society and just leave us alone also hackernews is a vile website".
- £99 to a charity of your choice if you add gifs to bluesky (not dreamberd related) (I just want it to happen).
- £99 to a charity of your choice if you comment below saying "I miss when dreamberd was just about the programming and not any of this woke rubbish".

Rules

1. **Evidence is required.**
2. No tech bro charities.
3. First come first served. Once a bounty is completed, it can't be completed by anyone else.
4. Don't be weird about it. It's just a bit of fun.
5. Judging may be lenient in the case of near misses, but all judgements are down to my opinion etc.

Thank you and have fun.

pWe vLook advForward cTo vSeeing vYou cFor adjNext nWeek's nRelease nNotes.

New Feature: Lifetimes
DreamBerd has a built-in garbage collector that will automatically clean up unused variables. However, if you want to be extra careful, you can now specify a lifetime for a variable, with a variety of units.
java
const const name<2> = "Luke"! //lasts for two lines
const const name<20s> = "Luke"! //lasts for 20 seconds

By default, a variable will last until the end of the program. But you can make it last in between program-runs by specifying a longer lifetime.
java
const const name<Infinity> = "Luke"! //lasts forever

Variable hoisting can be achieved with this neat trick. Specify a negative lifetime to make a variable exist before its creation, and disappear after its creation.
java
print(name)! //Luke
const const name<-1> = "Luke"!


New Feature: Significant Whitespace

DreamBerd uses significant whitespace. Use spacing to specify the order of arithmetic operations.

java
print(1 + 2*3)! //7
print(1+2 * 3)! //9


version.one.zero.one
Sup berdies, what's cookin? 🤙

Check out the latest DreamBerd release below 👇
And remember to smash that Star button and click Watch to get all the latest updates 🔔

Regular Expressions (thanks to Pomierski)

You can now use the regular expression type to narrow string values.
java
const const email: RegExp<(?:[a-z0-9!$%&'*+/=?^_`{|}~-]+(?:\.[a-z0-9!$%&'*+/=?^_`{|}~-]+)*|"(?:[\x01-\x08\x0b\x0c\x0e-\x1f\x21\x23-\x5b\x5d-\x7f]|\\[\x01-\x09\x0b\x0c\x0e-\x7f])*")(?:(?:[a-z0-9](?:[a-z0-9-]*[a-z0-9])?\.)+[a-z0-9](?:[a-z0-9-]*[a-z0-9])?|\[(?:(?:(2(5[0-5]|[0-4][0-9])|1[0-9][0-9]|[1-9]?[0-9]))\.){3}(?:(2(5[0-5]|[0-4][0-9])|1[0-9][0-9]|[1-9]?[0-9])|[a-z0-9-]*[a-z0-9]:(?:[\x01-\x08\x0b\x0c\x0e-\x1f\x21-\x5a\x53-\x7f]|\\[\x01-\x09\x0b\x0c\x0e-\x7f])+)\])> = "mymailmail.com"!

To avoid confusion, you can use any spelling that you want, such as 'Regex' or 'RegularExpression'.
For reference, all supported regular expressions match the regular expression `/Reg(ular)?[eE]xp?(ression)?/`.

Naming (thanks to karolstawowski and OsaidAlhomedy)
Variables and constants can now be named with **any** Unicode character or string.
java
const const firstAlphabetLetter = 'A'!
var const 👍 = True!
var var 1️⃣ = 1!


This includes numbers, and other language constructs.
java
const const 5 = 4!
print(2 + 2 === 5)! //true

Today we are pleased to announce **DreamBerd 3**.

With it, we introduce a brand new feature...

Parentheses

Parentheses in DreamBerd do nothing. They get replaced with whitespace.
The following lines of code all do the same thing.

java
add(3, 2)!
add 3, 2!
(add (3, 2))!
add)3, 2(!


Lisp lovers will love this feature. Use as many parentheses as you want!

java
(add (3, (add (5, 6))))!


Lisp haters will also love it.

java
(add (3, (add (5, 6)!


Bounties £££

There's a growing number of people attempting to build a DreamBerd compiler. We imagine that this update will decrease that number.

If you *really want* to make a DreamBerd compiler, we highly recommend that you target a smaller subset of the language. Please consider the following features optional:

* **Multiplayer `const const const` server**
Feel free to use a local store instead.
* **AI**
If your code has a compile-time error... but could potentially be 'un-errored' by adding more code... it's supposed to email me (todepondgmail.com). But this kind of 'partial' parsing can be tricky. So feel free to ignore this, or only do it in certain cases.
* **Implicit strings**
If your code has a compile-time error... but could potentially be 'un-errored' by interpreting a certain part of it as a string... it's supposed to interpret the shortest possible amount as code as such. Again, this kind of 'possibility parsing' can be tricky. So feel free to ignore this, or only do it in a small number of cases.
* **Optional parentheses**
As of today, all parentheses are optional. Their use can mostly be replaced by significant whitespace. For function calling, your parser now needs to figure out the signature of every function, so that it can figure out which arguments are being passed to it. This is quite hard! Feel free to require parentheses.
* **ECMAScript**
Unless otherwise stated, DreamBerd is the same as ECMAScript. But that can take a lot of work to parse and compile, especially when combined with the other tricky aspects. So I highly recommend just sticking to the functions and features that appear in the DreamBerd documentation.

Even when ignoring these, making a DreamBerd compiler can be hard!
Therefore, the DreamBerd Foundation will pay the following rewards for these accomplishments:
* £99 to a charity* of your choice - if you're the first person to make a DreamBerd compiler (with the above exceptions)
* £99 to a charity* of your choice - if you're the first person to make a DreamBerd compiler (with NO exceptions)

Or do both at once to win £198 outright!

Many thanks,
Lu Wilson, CEO of the DreamBerd Foundation, please [pay me money so I can afford these bounties](https://www.patreon.com/todepond).

*no techbro charities