Whimsical Particles

Field manuals.

Long-form, bilingual, diagram-first guides to how software actually works — one subject at a time.

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Fig. 0 — the collection, exploded

First editionEN / 中Rendered at the edge

The manuals.

16 series · 235 chapters
  1. 01Whimsical Animations奇趣動畫實戰手冊18 ch · CSS / JS / SVG · EN/中Lush web animation from first principles — easing, polar motion, and dispersion, then the magic of SVG: shapes, paths, the viewBox, masks, and self-drawing lines.
  2. 02Domain-Driven Design領域驅動設計・模型驅動設計的構成要素・實戰手冊11 ch · PHP 8 · modelling · EN/中Work through the building blocks of a model-driven design — layered architecture, associations, entities, value objects, services, modules, aggregates, factories and repositories — then watch them meet in one cargo-shipping system, all in PHP you can run in the page.
  3. 03CRDTs from Scratch從零打造 CRDT 同步引擎・實戰手冊13 ch · Rust 2021 · EN/中Build a local-first sync engine the way Mini-Instant does — hybrid logical clocks, op-logs, and convergence, byte by byte.
  4. 04OXC from Scratch解剖 OXC・用 Rust 從零打造 JavaScript 工具鏈・實戰手冊23 ch · Rust 2021 · EN/中Rebuild the Oxidation Compiler one pass at a time — arena, hand-written lexer and Pratt parser, linter, transformer, codegen — and read the real OXC alongside.
  5. 05Mini Base UI迷你 Base UI・從零打造無頭元件庫的內部機制・實戰手冊30 ch · React 18 · TS · EN/中Rebuild a headless component library from scratch — the store, render delegation, portals, Floating UI positioning, hover intent, focus trapping, and the full component set — reading the real Base UI and Floating UI alongside.
  6. 06Floating UIFloating UI・讓浮動元素永遠落在對的位置・實戰手冊09 ch · TS · @floating-ui · EN/中Master the anchoring engine behind every tooltip, popover and dropdown — computePosition and the twelve placements, offset, flip, shift, size, arrow, hide, autoUpdate, virtual elements, and the React hooks layer — one live playground at a time.
  7. 07Mini Floating UI迷你 Floating UI・從零打造浮動定位引擎・實戰手冊10 ch · TS · from scratch · EN/中Build the floating-element positioning engine by hand — rects and coordinate spaces, placement algebra, the middleware loop, collision handling and autoUpdate, then the advanced machinery: the platform seam, clipping, arrow & size, virtual references, and a mini React layer.
  8. 08LLM SystemsLLM 系統・實戰手冊18 ch · Python · PyTorch · EN/中Rebuild the language-model stack from tokenization and transformers through parallelism, scaling, inference, evaluation, data, and alignment—with interactive instruments throughout.
  9. 09A Coding Agent from Scratch解剖 Pi・用 TypeScript 從零打造 Coding Agent・實戰手冊08 ch · TS · Node ≥ 20 · EN/中Rebuild the Pi agent harness one subsystem at a time — the streaming LLM protocol, the agent loop, coding tools, JSONL tree sessions, compaction, a differential-rendering TUI, and extensions — and read the real Pi alongside.
  10. 10Data Structures Before the Database打造資料庫之前・Rust 資料結構暖身手冊10 ch · Rust · zero prerequisites · EN/中A beginner bridge into the database manual — values, vectors, search cost, recursion, graphs, trees, invariants, B+ trees, bytes, and pages, with a live Rust lab in every chapter.
  11. 11A Database from Scratch用 Rust 從零打造資料庫・實戰手冊15 ch · Rust 2024 · B+ tree · EN/中Rewrite the classic db_tutorial in safe Rust — from a tiny REPL and statement compiler to durable 4 KiB pages, linked leaves, recursive search, and multi-level B+ tree splits.
  12. 12SQL from Scratch用 Rust 從零打造 SQL 引擎14 ch · Rust 2024 · SQL compiler · EN/中Continue the mini database above the B+ tree — tokenize SQL, build an AST, resolve a schema, choose scan or lookup plans, execute typed rows, explain errors, and persist the result.
  13. 13Browser Engineering in Rust用 Rust 從零打造瀏覽器・實戰手冊16 ch · Rust 2024 · browser · part 1 of 3 · EN/中Build one browser from response bytes to DOM and style trees, layout boxes, raster pixels, navigation, forms, security, tasks, compositing, accessibility, embeds, and dependency-correct incremental rendering.
  14. 14Advanced Browser Engineering in Rust進階瀏覽器工程・以 Rust 實作14 ch · Rust 2024 · rendering systems · part 2 of 3 · EN/中Continue the same browser through caching, complex selectors, text runs, flex and grid, decoded pixels, DOM dispatch, a typed VM, microtasks, authority-checked IPC, tiled compositing, DevTools, and independent conformance oracles.
  15. 15Browser Runtime Engineering in RustEnglish-first draft · 繁中翻譯將於英文定稿後進行16 ch · Rust 2024 · services · recovery · part 3 of 3 · EN/中Surround the completed renderer with deterministic scheduling, bounded protocols, streaming services, transactional navigation, frame groups, brokered authority, crash recovery, scene replay, BFCache, and causal traces—then render the recovered page.
  16. 16Reading the Real Browser讀懂真正的瀏覽器・實戰手冊10 ch · Chromium · Servo · reading guide · EN/中The companion to the three Rust series above — no crate, just the real source. Ten chapters reading Chromium/Blink, cc, V8, and Servo/Stylo alongside the honest crate-scale boundary each one replaces: process isolation, RenderingNG, the cascade at scale, text shaping, full Flexbox/Grid, GPU tiling, V8/SpiderMonkey, the network stack, DevTools, and how a real engine proves itself correct.
Practice · Socratic interviewProve you learnt it.Pick a series and a range of chapters, then rebuild the mini versions by hand while an AI interviewer probes what you actually understood.

Status: 200 · rendered at the edge · © 1990 (just kidding)