This article relies a lot of interactive demos that use JavaScript. I understand you're disabling JavaScript because you've been burned by heavy scripts and tracking on other sites, but the article really doesn't work without the ability to play with it. I write every line of code in these demos from scratch, minus the snippet of Google Analytics that lets me know when people read these so I can join in the conversation. Feel free to block Google Analytics.

Introduction

The goal of Explanations is to try to allow people to play with fun parts of computers. Graphics, compression, audio. The tagline is my biggest inspiration: "Play, don't show", riffing off the typical "Show, don't tell" rule of writers and authors everywhere. Why bother giving a diagram when I give you an inspector and let you poke at things yourself!

It takes me a long time to write an Explanation, so these might not come out as quick as you like, but I do plan on writing these as long as I'm able to. I also don't claim to be the world's expert on most everything I'm writing about. I might be wrong! Please let me know by email or through a GitHub issue.

Previously, this series was known as "Xplain" and was more focused on the X11 window system and protocol, but I've been slowly moving towards anything that interests me, and I'm hijacking this project for it since I really like the format and style I've developed. The code for every single one of these demos is available in the GitHub repo, and I do try to comment heavily and go into even more depth there! Play with the code! Use it for one of your own projects! It's all MIT/X11 licensed. I very much appreciate followup questions and any sort of feedback through the links mentioned above.