Author Archives: jcs

Pair Programming: The Poll

Posted on 2024-12-01 by jcs

Well, not really a poll but at least some random opinions. A while ago, I mentioned a discussion I had with Perry Metzger about pair programming. Metzger, who is a serious person and well worth listening to, is a huge … Continue reading →

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Shrinking And Widening Org Table Columns

Posted on 2024-11-30 by jcs

Just a quickie today because I’m still recovering from the Thanksgiving festivities. The Irreal bunker sealed the doors and refused to venture outside on Black Friday, a day in which many stores have stupendous sales resulting in unhinged behavior on … Continue reading →

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🥩 Red Meat Friday: Using The Command Line

Posted on 2024-11-29 by jcs

When I saw this post, I knew was getting old. The post was about why every developer should learn to use the command line in 2024. My reaction was, “Say what!?!” To me, it was like saying every baby should … Continue reading →

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Casual Calendar

Posted on 2024-11-28 by jcs

Charles Choi is back with another app in his great set of Casual packages. This time it’s to provide a menu interface to the calendar/diary functions in Emacs. I don’t use either of these functionalities directly because it’s hard to … Continue reading →

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Today’s Humor: ISPs Provide Excellent Customer Service

Posted on 2024-11-27 by jcs

According to an Ars Technica report, ISPs say that their customer service is so good that customers don’t seek other providers. That claim was made by the NCTA-The Internet & Television Association, a cable industry trade association in response to … Continue reading →

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Digital Vs. Analog Notes Redux

Posted on 2024-11-26 by jcs

My post on Digital Vs. Analog Notes got some excellent comments as well as a followup post from JTR on his site. JTR mostly agrees with what I wrote but I did get some pushback in the comments on Irreal. … Continue reading →

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Why Numbering Should Start At 0

Posted on 2024-11-25 by jcs

As many of you know, Edsger W. Dijkstra was an important and prolific mathematician and computer science. He was responsible for, among other things, the widely used shortest path algorithm. One oddity of his work was that a substantial part … Continue reading →

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The Only Computer Science Book Worth Reading Twice

Posted on 2024-11-24 by jcs

Longtime Irreal readers know that I consider Abelson’s & Sussman’s Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP) arguably the best computer science book of all time. There’s Knuth’s The Art of Computer Programming of course but for the average software … Continue reading →

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Plugins Again

Posted on 2024-11-23 by jcs

I thought we had settled this once and for all but apparently not. Over at the Emacs subreddit, sudhirkhanger asks about VS Code’s extension system as compared to Emacs’. He’s “blown away” at how great the VS Code plugin system … Continue reading →

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Some Configuration To Solve Common Problems

Posted on 2024-11-22 by jcs

Remember how, when you first started using Emacs, there were all those strange defaults that just didn’t seem right. The worst one, for me, was scrolling. I hated the way the screen would jump when you got near the top … Continue reading →

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