Author Archives: jcs

Keyboard Switches

Posted on 2014-09-19 by jcs

As many of you know, Xah Lee is a keyboard aficionado who spends a lot of time researching and trying different keyboards. There are, it seems to me, three aspects to keyboards Ergonomics Layout key switches All three aspects are … Continue reading →

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Launching Emacs Features

Posted on 2014-09-18 by jcs

Artur Malabarba has a nice riff on his toggling keymap that I wrote about here. This time he considers launching Emacs commands such as calc, ediff-buffers, man, shell, proced, and others. As Malabarba says, these are useful commands that you … Continue reading →

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Git Merge and Rebase Explained

Posted on 2014-09-17 by jcs

Git has become the de facto standard version control system. Many people find it confusing or even impossible to understand. In actuality, Git is based on some simple ideas that, once understood, make Git almost transparent. An example of this … Continue reading →

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One Side of the Argument Has Class

Posted on 2014-09-16 by jcs

That distant relative agrees to take back the sweater.

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Three Groups of Editors

Posted on 2014-09-16 by jcs

I came across this tweet People are categorized in 3 groups. "Almighty Emacsians", "Vim users", "Dumb-asses" :)) #emacs #vim — lxsameer (@lxsameer) August 29, 2014 that reminded me of my slightly less controversial post on the same subject. That post was … Continue reading →

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The Real Purpose of Operating Systems

Posted on 2014-09-15 by jcs

An amusing anecdote from Perry Metzger’s The Editor of a Lifetime talk. I don't care what OS I use, it's just a boot loader for #Emacs anyway. –Some U. Penn PhD student — jandrusk (@jandrusk) August 21, 2014

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A Quick Introduction to Generic Functions & CLOS

Posted on 2014-09-14 by jcs

Zach Beane points to a nice post by Nicolas Hafner on Generic Functions and CLOS. CLOS is often considered a hideously complicated system but the basics are easy to understand and use and most people will never need to explore … Continue reading →

Posted in Programming | Tagged , | 1 Comment

And By the Way…

Posted on 2014-09-13 by jcs

…Happy Programmers’ Day.

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Things My Mom Taught Me

Posted on 2014-09-13 by jcs

Suppose a distant relative sends you a sweater. It’s a perfectly good sweater but not a style you like or would ever wear. Instead of rolling your eyes and sending a pro forma thank you note, you take to twitter … Continue reading →

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Mathematics in a Blog Post

Posted on 2014-09-12 by jcs

As some of you know, I was trained as a mathematician. It’s odd, then, that my posts don’t have more mathematics in them. The reason for that is that this blog is mostly about computers and development so there’s not … Continue reading →

Posted in Blogging | Tagged , | 14 Comments