Monthly Archives: October 2024

Define Alternatives

Posted on 2024-10-31 by jcs

Marcin Borkowski (mbork) has an excellent post concerning a function I didn’t know about. It helps with the following problem: suppose you have a function with several implementations, want to access them with a single function name, and need to … Continue reading →

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More Hard Coded Credentials

Posted on 2024-10-30 by jcs

Remember a month ago when I ranted wrote about Solar Winds making what can only be described as professional malfeasance by hard coding credentials into one of their applications? It seemed worth writing about because, after all, that was surely … Continue reading →

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Who Created Emacs

Posted on 2024-10-29 by jcs

Over at the Emacs subreddit, FirmSupermarket6933 asks who really created Emacs. He cites various sources claiming that RMS did or did not create it. Is he responsible only for GNU Emacs or was he there from the beginning? Sadly the … Continue reading →

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Casual Redux

Posted on 2024-10-28 by jcs

Charles Choi has a new announcement about his Casual package. Several of his users encouraged him to offer Casual to Emacs core or Elpa. He did that and, of course, he got push back. The main complaint was that there … Continue reading →

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The Abusers Strike Back

Posted on 2024-10-27 by jcs

At the end of my post on the FTC rule requiring making it easy to unsubscribe to services, I wondered what the response would be from those companies addicted to such abusive practices. We didn’t have to wait long. A … Continue reading →

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Second Pretest For Emacs 30.1

Posted on 2024-10-26 by jcs

Andrea Corallo just announced that Emacs.30.0.92, the second pretest for Emacs 30.1, is now available from https://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/pretest/emacs-30.0.92.tar.xz. The associated signature file is at https://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/pretest/emacs-30.0.92.tar.xz.sig. If you can, the developers would like you to try it out and report any problems. … Continue reading →

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🥩 Red Meat Friday: An Old Meme

Posted on 2024-10-25 by jcs

This one’s for you Vimistas. It’s an old meme, for sure—indeed, the post is 10 years old—but still good for a laugh. I vaguely remember a couple of (non-editor) products named “Emacs” but “Vim” definitely has the cleanser market cornered. … Continue reading →

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Hiding Dired Details

Posted on 2024-10-24 by jcs

Álvaro Ramírez has another tweak to his Dired display environment. This time it’s a patch to hide the absolute path of the current directory in Dired listings. Ramírez likes to display minimal information in his Dired listings because, as he … Continue reading →

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Emacs-kick

Posted on 2024-10-23 by jcs

As many of you know, I’m fascinated by nontraditional users of Emacs. By “nontraditional users” I mean people outside of engineering and the sciences. I like to hear how novelists and people in the humanities leverage the power of Emacs … Continue reading →

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What Keyboard Are You Using With Emacs

Posted on 2024-10-22 by jcs

A month ago I opined that no true Scotsman Emacser would view anything but the Space Cadet Keyboard as the apotheosis of keyboards for Emacs users. I was promptly schooled that, to the contrary, most Emacs users today have no … Continue reading →

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