Author Archives: jcs

Quantum Theory and Computational Complexity

Posted on 2014-07-26 by jcs

The Physics arXiv Blog has a really interesting article about the connection between quantum theory and the question of whether or not P = NP. The article starts with the question of why we can’t observe quantum phenomena at the … Continue reading →

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Advanced Programming Mode Implementation

Posted on 2014-07-25 by jcs

A year and a half ago I mentioned Christopher Wellons’ excellent tutorial on writing a minor mode. Now David Christiansen looks at some of the advanced aspects of implementing programming modes. As with Wellons’ post, Christiansen is documenting the things … Continue reading →

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Emacs Themes

Posted on 2014-07-24 by jcs

I started using Emacs before there was any real support for themes so I just selected the default light configuration. I made a few tweaks like making the cursor a red bar but didn’t do much fiddling otherwise. About three … Continue reading →

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Unicode Font Redux

Posted on 2014-07-23 by jcs

A couple of days ago I wrote about finally solving a long standing Emacs problem involving missing glyphs in my default font. I was really happy to have the problem resolved. So pleased I wrote about it in glowing terms. … Continue reading →

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Fast Toggling Emacs Modes

Posted on 2014-07-22 by jcs

Over at Endless Parentheses, which I’ve mentioned before, Artur Malabarba has a really good idea. He shows how to define a custom key map that he uses to toggle modes that he uses frequently. He binds the commands to the … Continue reading →

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Backup Fonts for Unicode Glyphs

Posted on 2014-07-21 by jcs

Trey Harris posed a question on the Google+ Emacs Community that’s been bothering me for some time. I use the terrific Inconsolata as the default for monospaced fonts but many of the Unicode glyphs are missing. Mac OS X takes … Continue reading →

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Russ Cox on Debugging

Posted on 2014-07-20 by jcs

There’s a new site, Debuggers, that is sort of reminiscent of The Setup. The idea is that every week (on Tuesdays) they publish a short questionnaire with a programmer asking about his or her most interesting debugging problem. This week … Continue reading →

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The 10 Greatest Programmers of all Time

Posted on 2014-07-19 by jcs

Last week, I wrote about NetWork World’s 14 Greatest Living Programmers. This week, I’m Programmer has a list of The 10 Greatest Programmers in the World of all Time. Lists of these sorts are always silly, of course, but nevertheless … Continue reading →

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Let’s Play Emacs Golf!

Posted on 2014-07-18 by jcs

It’s been a while since Irreal has had an EmacsGolf challenge but yesterday’s post on Programming Silliness suggested a nice one. When I ran the grep, I got A a aa Ab aba … faff fe fed fee feed The … Continue reading →

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Programming Silliness

Posted on 2014-07-17 by jcs

The other day I saw this post. Although I’m not interested in Java, I was struck by the magic number CAFEBABE that marked the beginning of the structure. That got me wondering how many words can be made with the … Continue reading →

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