Impossible Machines: declaratively program the physical world
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Hey all —Sharing a thought experiment I put together. The premise: what might declarative programming feel like for the physical world?We’re already familiar with this paradigm in software land (eg SQL etc where we declare what we want and the execution engine figures out how).I didn’t have access to an actuator so I mocked up the concept in software. The way it works is you demonstrate the effect and the system figures out how to achieve it. So say you want to ring a bell and you have a crank. The system will find a way to connect the two. If you add obstacles it figures out how to work around them (runs a constraint solver runs behind the scenes).I think what’s interesting about this is being able to think about the problem at a higher level of abstraction, with the system figuring out a way to achieve the intended effect.Anyways, curious to read reactions, feedback, and interesting ideas on how to extend this!
HN · launched Oct 22, 2026 · 81 upvotes (top 13%) · 0 views
Niche: programming languages and interpreters · 161 launches, 2 in the last 7 days ▼ -75% · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Horizontal
- Hardware & robotics
- Developer
- Not AI
- Commercial product
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More like this: all 161 launches in programming languages and interpreters →
Could you build this?
Yes The shown product is a browser prototype with a 2D physics mechanism builder, UI controls, and a challenge mode. Vibe-coding with a physics library like Matter.js can produce something similar in days.
Discussion
No comments on this launch.
Competitors
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Attention rank: #38 of 240 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 356 days after the earliest competitor.
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