Category Archives: General

Semantic Locality

Posted on 2017-06-05 by jcs

I’m an old time Unix guy who’s still more comfortable on the command line than a big GUI. That’s probably why I enjoy living in Emacs to the extent possible. One of the most powerful concepts from Unix is the … Continue reading →

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Fuco1 on Anchored Fontlocking

Posted on 2017-06-04 by jcs

Matus Goljer (Fuco1) has a really meaty post on one of the dark corners in Emacs. By dark corner I mean little understood and complicated. Fuco1 doesn’t think very much of the font lock logic, depending, as it does, on … Continue reading →

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Some Scimax Enhancements

Posted on 2017-06-03 by jcs

I’ve been seeing a lot of tweets and posts asking about how to do Python development in Emacs. There are a bunch of good solutions, of course, but one of the best resources is John Kitchin. Kitchin is a Chemical … Continue reading →

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Another Emacs Mail Solution

Posted on 2017-06-02 by jcs

I’ve recently blogged about Emacs solutions to handling email. As most of you know by now, I’ve settled on mu/mu4e and have been extraordinarily happy with it. Still, not everyone has the same workflow or likes the same things. Andy … Continue reading →

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Notmuch Video

Posted on 2017-06-01 by jcs

A while ago I wrote about notmuch and astroid as an alternative to mu/mu4e. Since then lots of folks have told me how much they love notmuch and what a great solution it is for email. There’s even an Emacs … Continue reading →

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How to Read the Commentary Section of Emacs Packages

Posted on 2017-05-31 by jcs

Alexandro de Oliveira has a problem that I’ve also experienced. He wants to know how he can read a complete description of a package such as that given on its Elpa page. He asked on Stack Exchange and gave as … Continue reading →

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The FBI Proves the Iron Law of Data Collection

Posted on 2017-05-30 by jcs

About a year ago, I wrote about the FBI’s use of §702 data—supposedly collected to fight terrorism—for routine law enforcement having nothing to do with terrorism. I called it another confirmation of the Iron Law of Data Collection: the idea … Continue reading →

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An Update on Microsoft’s Move to Git

Posted on 2017-05-29 by jcs

A few months ago, I wrote about Microsoft’s move to git and the scaling problems they were having to overcome. Now Brian Harry has posted an update on their work. They have what they claim is the largest git repository … Continue reading →

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Fontifying Broken Org Links

Posted on 2017-05-28 by jcs

John Kitchin answers an Emacs Stack Exchange question and provides a handy tip. The question was how to display a broken Org link in the Org-warning face. That turns out to be really simple. If you’re dealing with particularly volatile … Continue reading →

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Henry Spencer and getopt

Posted on 2017-05-27 by jcs

Kids today! They have it so easy. (Waves cane.) Eric Raymond (esr) has posted a charming vignette that, among other things, illustrates how easy we have it today. The story is set in 1984 when AT&T had just announced that … Continue reading →

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