Author Archives: jcs

Bending Emacs 9: Time-zones

Posted on 2026-01-07 by jcs

I’ve written before about Álvaro Ramírez’s time-zones app. It’s sort of like the builtin Emacs app world-clock but easier to configure and you can move the times forward and backward, which is useful for setting up remote meetings in several … Continue reading →

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Twenty One Lessons From Google

Posted on 2026-01-06 by jcs

Addy Osmani has been working at Google for about 14 years. During that time, he’s learned a few—basically non-technical—lessons about life as a software engineer. His post, 21 Lessons From 14 Years at Google, lists some of the things he … Continue reading →

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A Paean To Dumb Jump

Posted on 2026-01-05 by jcs

I’m a long term user of Dumb Jump. According to this Irreal post, I’ve been a devoted fan since 2017. As I’ve said many times in my several posts about Dumb Jump—search for “dumb jump” on Irreal if you’re interested—I’ve … Continue reading →

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How We Know C++ Is Too Complicated

Posted on 2026-01-04 by jcs

Although I am a huge fan of C and have written thousands—maybe millions—of lines of C code, I’ve never warmed up to C++. Every time I’ve had to write in it, I’ve ended up muttering things like, “this is a … Continue reading →

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Fixing My Feed From Sacha

Posted on 2026-01-03 by jcs

I’ve been following Sacha Chua for a long time. I think I started while she was still at University but it was certainly shortly afterwards at the latest. She’s been at it for about 25 years so it’s hard for … Continue reading →

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🥩 Red Meat Friday: Reclaiming The Em-Dash

Posted on 2026-01-02 by jcs

Irreal is, of course, an em-dash friendly site. We’ve extolled the mighty em-dash and our love for it many times. Recently, an odious meme has arisen claiming that “real” people don’t use the em-dash and that its use is a … Continue reading →

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Blogging Platforms

Posted on 2026-01-01 by jcs

Jack Baty has a New Year’s resolution: Don’t change blogging platforms more than once a quarter. Say what? I don’t know about the rest of you but changing blogging platforms regularly seems to me like getting divorced and remarried regularly. … Continue reading →

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Engineering Rules

Posted on 2025-12-31 by jcs

I wrote what was supposed to be today’s post last night but in the light of day I decided I didn’t like it and had to start over. Fortunately, I found this set of slides on Akin’s Laws of Spacecraft … Continue reading →

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Never Try Emacs

Posted on 2025-12-30 by jcs

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about Tsoding’s video on the annoying usefulness of Emacs. His conclusion was that you should stay away from Emacs because once you try it, you will never be able to break free. Now … Continue reading →

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Emacs Lisp Elements

Posted on 2025-12-29 by jcs

Some time ago, Protesilaos Stavrou published a nice book on Emacs Lisp. The idea is to bring a “big picture approach” to Elisp so that every Emacs user can experience the joy of fine tuning Emacs to meet their exact … Continue reading →

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