Author Archives: jcs

Mandated Editor

Posted on 2022-10-09 by jcs

I recently came across a truly awful post to the Emacs subreddit. It wasn’t the post itself; it’s what it revealed. The post asked how to counter FUD from users of the bling-centric editors that Emacs was old technology that … Continue reading →

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Dictionaries and Emacs

Posted on 2022-10-08 by jcs

Somewhere in 2014–2015, I came across James Somers’ beautiful article on Webster’s 1913 dictionary and why it’s the right choice. It was a revelation to me, opening my eyes to a wonderful resource that ever since has helped me find … Continue reading →

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Red Meat Friday: Is The FSF Fighting The Previous War?

Posted on 2022-10-07 by jcs

This is a bit genuine red meat and perhaps a little sensitive for some people but it does raise a point that deserves discussion. A shorthand for that point is the title of today’s post. A more descriptive way of … Continue reading →

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Volume 4B

Posted on 2022-10-06 by jcs

This is a short post announcing a, sadly, infrequent event: the release of a new volume of The Art of Computer Programming. Donald Knuth has announced the availability of the long awaited Volume 4B of The Art of Computer Programming. … Continue reading →

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Emacs Debugging

Posted on 2022-10-05 by jcs

Guangwang Huang, over at whatacold’s space, has a useful post on debugging Emacs. It’s aimed at beginners but will be useful for more experienced Emacsers too. The basic idea is what you should do when you start Emacs and get … Continue reading →

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A N00b’s View of Emacs

Posted on 2022-10-04 by jcs

Mahmoud Mazouz is an Emacs n00b. He’s been using Emacs for about two months but has experience with (neo)Vim and VS Code. He recently posted his view of Emacs and what he sees as its strengths. Like many (or, perhaps, … Continue reading →

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Why You Shouldn’t Be Using Chrome

Posted on 2022-10-03 by jcs

Even if you’re a bit cynical about Google’s protestations of respecting your privacy, you’ll probably be shocked at the extent to which the Google Chrome browser is indistinguishable from malware. If I told you that some app captured all your … Continue reading →

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Letters With Org-mod

Posted on 2022-10-02 by jcs

If you’re like me and want to do all your writing from within Org-mode, one problem you need to solve is how to write letters—especially professional letters. I use a LaTeX template and write the letter in LaTeX but mostly … Continue reading →

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Yasnippet for Prose Writing

Posted on 2022-10-01 by jcs

When you think about it, the title of this post doesn’t appear to make sense. Yasnippet is a template system for adding customized boiler plate to an Emacs buffer. It’s raison d’être is to enable shortcuts for various programming constructs … Continue reading →

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Red Meat Friday: VS Code As A Venus Flytrap

Posted on 2022-09-30 by jcs

The hackers and programmers that I grew up with knew all about Microsoft and realized that they were relentlessly predatory. Lately Microsoft has been trying to project a kinder, gentler image but developers from my cohort who have not yet … Continue reading →

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