Tag Archives: Tech

How The Thompson Hack Worked

Posted on 2023-11-06 by jcs

Every year or so I revisit and write about Ken Thompson’s 1983 Turing Award lecture, Reflections on Trusting Trust. It’s one of those papers that should be read every year: it seems there’s always something new to learn. The paper … Continue reading →

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Five Shell One Liners

Posted on 2023-11-02 by jcs

Perhaps I’m just old fashioned and pining for the old days. Or perhaps I’m anticipating the time when I can finally wave my cane at all those pesky kids. Whatever the case, I do believe that avoiding the command line—or … Continue reading →

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Vimari

Posted on 2023-10-29 by jcs

Back in August, I wrote about my quest to minimize mouse usage as much as possible. That’s easy in Emacs where my mouse usage is essentially zero. It’s a bit harder when navigating between apps and performing various system duties … Continue reading →

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Exploratory Data Analysis With AWK

Posted on 2023-10-23 by jcs

This post is about Brian Kernighan and AWK, two things always worth hearing about. All of you, I’m sure, know that after retiring from Bell Labs, Kernighan took a professorship at his Alma Mater, Princeton. Since he’s been there, Kernighan … Continue reading →

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New AWK Book

Posted on 2023-09-24 by jcs

Long time Irreal readers know that I’m a fan of the AWK language. Whatever OS you’re using, AWK is sure to be available. It’s installed by default on all Unix/Linux systems and may be on Windows as well. Linux systems … Continue reading →

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Compiler Humor

Posted on 2023-09-03 by jcs

Apropos of Nothing, as Cheryl Crow once put it, here’s something you don’t see very often: compiler humor. From another era when engineers were still allowed to inject whimsy into software, Tony Cunningham offers us a selection of error messages … Continue reading →

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Striving For A Mouse Free Workflow

Posted on 2023-08-30 by jcs

As I’ve often suggested—most recently here and here—I try to minimize my use of the mouse as much as I can. Mostly that’s been in the context of Emacs where it’s easy. My desire to avoid the mouse is not … Continue reading →

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REPL Driven Programming

Posted on 2023-08-04 by jcs

I’ve written many times about what I call “exploratory” or “interactive” programming. The idea is you build your program from the bottom up, trying out expressions, building them into larger and larger units until you have a whole program. For … Continue reading →

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Config File Languages

Posted on 2023-07-28 by jcs

Joe Marshall over at Abstract Heresies has a short allegory on designing configuration file languages. We’ve probably all been there. It starts off simple: he just wants a configuration file that handles key/value pairs. But then he finds he needs … Continue reading →

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The Old Days

Posted on 2023-06-09 by jcs

I ran across this amazing picture on Massimo, a splendid site that offers several fascinating and unusual tweets a day. If you like being surprised and astounded, give Massimo a look. The picture is of the original IBM hard drive. … Continue reading →

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