Category Archives: General

Mouseless

Posted on 2021-02-07 by jcs

If you grew up with computers using a GUI interface, the idea of not using a mouse probably seems ridiculous. Why would anyone want to do that? As I’ve said in other contexts, you can live without air conditioning too … Continue reading →

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Red Meat Friday: Real Programmers Use TECO

Posted on 2021-02-05 by jcs

Think you’re tough because you use Vi or Emacs? Or even ed? “Real Programmers” don’t think so. “”Real Programmers” FTW #emacs #teco https://t.co/cEUEwClDBg pic.twitter.com/Jwvs87X1AY — (((bob pasker))) (@rbpasker) January 31, 2021 It’s hard to see the entire text in the … Continue reading →

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An Example of Literate Programming

Posted on 2021-02-04 by jcs

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m ambivalent about literate programming. I love the idea of it and absolutely agree with all its claimed strengths but I’ve never been able to embrace it in practice. The major problem, I think, is that … Continue reading →

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Transient Mark Mode

Posted on 2021-02-03 by jcs

If you’ve been an Emacs user for a while, you probably know what transient mark mode is and you might even know that its use is—or was—controversial. It used to be disabled by default but in Emacs 23 the default … Continue reading →

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Using a Local Emacs From a Remote Host

Posted on 2021-02-02 by jcs

Michał Nazarewicz has a very interesting post on using Emacs to edit files on a remote system. Your first reaction is likely, “Meh, isn’t that just Tramp?” I know that was mine but Nazarewicz has a specific requirement: he wants … Continue reading →

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Symlink Copying with Dired

Posted on 2021-02-01 by jcs

Marcin Borkowski (mbork) has a handy tip concerning something I didn’t know about. If you use dired—as you should—for your file operations and you know that you can use C to copy one or more files. By default, the command, … Continue reading →

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Kids and Typewriters

Posted on 2021-01-31 by jcs

I’m not sure why I’m writing about this other than that I find it really annoying and can’t get it out of my mind. It sort of fits into the new Luddites category, which automatically makes it irksome but there’s … Continue reading →

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Emacs 27.2 Pretest 2 Is Out

Posted on 2021-01-30 by jcs

Eli Zartetskii announced on the emacs-devel list that the second pretest for Emacs 27.2 is ready. The announcement tells you where to get the tarballs if you prefer that method to using the git repository. As always, show your thanks … Continue reading →

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Read Meat Friday: The Editor Wars

Posted on 2021-01-29 by jcs

Yes, yes. We know it’s not quite true but it feels emotionally right. Or at least, satisfying. Something is wrong with the @Linux community if we’re arguing over ANY editors but #Emacs and #vi #vim #TheEditorWar https://t.co/Up1XECH6V4 — John S. … Continue reading →

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Reading HTML Emails with Mu4e

Posted on 2021-01-28 by jcs

Yesterday, in my post about sending HTML emails with mu4e, I noted that being able to send HTML emails is only half the problem; probably the easiest half. The hard part is being able to read a properly rendered email … Continue reading →

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