Author Archives: jcs

Vertically Aligning Code

Posted on 2014-12-05 by jcs

Terence Eden has a post in which he argues that code should be vertically aligned. Doing so, he says, improves readability and makes the code easier to understand. As an example, he offers int robert_age = 32; int annalouise_age = … Continue reading →

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N00bris

Posted on 2014-12-04 by jcs

Jean-Philippe Paradis nails it "n00bris: n. The pride of a newcomer to enter a new programming community and immediately start suggesting changes." — @fogus — Jean-PhilippeParadis (@HexstreamSoft) November 25, 2014 Lispers see this all the time with n00b proposals to … Continue reading →

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Pinning Packages

Posted on 2014-12-04 by jcs

I recently learned something useful from Timo Geusch in a post on pinning a package to a specific archive. It turns out that Emacs 24.4 has a new variable, package-pinned-packages, that tells the package system to get certain packages from … Continue reading →

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Markdown Gets Code Blocks

Posted on 2014-12-03 by jcs

I don’t use Markdown because, as an Emacs user, I have access to the superior Org Mode. Still, if you’re not an Emacs user, Markdown provides a subset of Org Mode’s capabilities and is definitely an excellent piece of software … Continue reading →

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EmacsGolf: Changing Times to 24-Hour Notation

Posted on 2014-12-02 by jcs

Here’s a problem I dealt with recently. We have a tab-delimited data file that has time as one of the fields. The times are in the U.S. 12-hour format with a trailing ‘a’ for AM or a ‘p’ or PM. … Continue reading →

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The Legacy of Emacs

Posted on 2014-12-01 by jcs

Bernd Haug has an interesting take on what the real legacy of Emacs is: #Emacs’s lasting legacy may be keeping #functional programming for real-life applications alive between AI winter and current renaissance. — Bernd Haug (@xaibeha) November 7, 2014

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SBCL 1.2.6 Is Released

Posted on 2014-12-01 by jcs

The new Steel Bank Common Lisp, version 1.2.6, is out and available at the usual place. As always, it built and passed the regression tests without problem. As usual, there are a couple of enhancements and some bug fixes. All … Continue reading →

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Animated Paredit Guide

Posted on 2014-11-30 by jcs

Dan Midwood has posted an excellent animated paredit guide. The post consists of animated gifs and supporting text. Midwood’s experience mirrors mine. For a long time he used only the most basic paredit features but then decided to optimize his … Continue reading →

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Handwriting Update

Posted on 2014-11-29 by jcs

It’s been a while since we’ve visited the fronts in the cursive wars. Here in the United States the trend away from cursive is moving fitfully forward with occasional counterattacks from traditionalists and their talk of Armageddon. It’s harder here … Continue reading →

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Lisp for the Web

Posted on 2014-11-28 by jcs

Adam Tornhill has a new book: Hard to believe I got 1000+ readers of my #Lisp book @leanpub . I mean, Lisp? I'm happy and proud! https://t.co/QFp86ulLnA — Adam Tornhill (@AdamTornhill) October 19, 2014 I just bought and downloaded my … Continue reading →

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