Author Archives: jcs

Introduction to GNU Emacs

Posted on 2023-03-02 by jcs

Keith Waclena has a great Introduction to GNU Emacs. It’s an ongoing project that started back with GNU Emacs 19.29 in 1997 and has been in continual development since. This latest version is for Emacs 28.2. Waclena works for the … Continue reading →

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Jonas Bernoulli Needs Our Support

Posted on 2023-03-01 by jcs

When people talk about the killer apps of Emacs, they always mention two: Org Mode and Magit. They’re both uniquely Emacs apps—even though Org is seeping into other environments—and an essential part of the Emacs experience. For the working developer, … Continue reading →

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Is Remote Working Bad For Developers?

Posted on 2023-02-28 by jcs

We here at Irreal strive for equanimity and maybe even a laid back attitude but sometimes the silliness just gets to be too much to bear. Case in point: Is Remote Working Bad For Developers? I’ve written many times that … Continue reading →

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Debugging With Org-babel

Posted on 2023-02-27 by jcs

Wade Mealing has an interesting article on using org-babel for the analysis of Linux kernel bugs. Mealing is a Red Hat engineer and involved with tracking down problems in the Linux kernel. He has a more-or-less fixed procedure for doing … Continue reading →

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Emacs Startup Time

Posted on 2023-02-26 by jcs

FreeAd7233 has an interesting reddit post on Emacs startup time. He’s recently moved from Doom Emacs to his own configuration and is amazed at how quickly Emacs loads. It’s less than a third of a second on his local (Apple … Continue reading →

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The Mark Ring

Posted on 2023-02-25 by jcs

Vernon Grant over at Discovering Emacs has an interesting video on using the mark ring. Most Irreal readers already know about the mark ring but its exact operation is a little mysterious. That’s especially true about the global mark ring. … Continue reading →

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Red Meat Friday: Props For Elon

Posted on 2023-02-24 by jcs

Say what you want about Elon Musk but Irreal holds him in special regard because of a whimsical decision he made for SpaceX. Most observant folks know that Irreal is an admirer of Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels. Indeed, the … Continue reading →

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Leaving Deft for Vanilla Emacs

Posted on 2023-02-23 by jcs

The title almost doesn’t make sense. After all, if you’re using Deft, you’re ipso facto using Emacs. James Dyer explains it in a way that makes sense. The TL;DR is that although he has been using Deft, he’s decided to … Continue reading →

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Webdriver

Posted on 2023-02-22 by jcs

One of the most useful capabilities I have on my computer is the ability to capture the URL of the current page in my browser. That doesn’t sound too exciting but I use it many times a day when I’m … Continue reading →

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EKG

Posted on 2023-02-21 by jcs

No, not electrocardiogram, Emacs Knowledge Graph. It’s a small project by Andrew Hyatt that is best thought of as light weight Zettelkasten sort of like the popular Emacs applications Org-roam and Denote. Take a look at the GitHub README for … Continue reading →

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