December 2011
7 posts
4 tags
Using Vim and Exuberant CTags for easy source...
I know many people who live and die with some of these shiny IDEs: nice fully-featured software to manage software projects. Design, code, compile, run, debug. Me, I distrust these great magnificient beasts. The good ones I’ve heard of work best when targetting certain platforms and languages, such as Xcode (for Mac and iOS software written mainly in Objective C), Eclipse (for Java software)...
4 tags
More shell, less egg - All this →
Having just fallen in love with literate programming, I stumble on this hilarious piece. Not so sobering as just a reminder that not every problem is a nail. As I said earlier, literate programming is a tool to manage the complexity of a problem solved in software. However, when the solution is expressed concisely in a certain language or toolkit, it is thus a simple problem in this perspective....
1 tag
Example of Literate Programming in HTML →
I will look like a complete Philistine, but this piece is my first serious exposition to literate programming. The times I had heard about this approach to software development, it had been derided as academical, unpragmatic and impractical — something that was of interest only to its pioneer, Donald Knuth. That that I can see it for myself, I think the ideas behind literate programming are...
4 tags
VimLinkNotes: a personal wiki using Vim and ctags
I have hacked together a simple personal wiki implementation in Vim, with the help of Exuberant ctags. I think the full implementation holds in less than 50 lines of configuration and Vim script code. Feel free to take a look at the project page. For the impatient, I might as well point to the GitHub page.
4 tags
Vim: Seven habits of effective text editing →
I am a member of the Vim cult. We hold no meetings, we don’t always know each other, we don’t all mock Emacs (at least I don’t), we just share an unlikely love for this lean and efficient text editor. Vim is like a good dog, it follows you everywhere you code, your faithful companion.
However, like a good dog, Vim requires some taming, some domestication (actually, Vim tames...
5 tags
Don’t Call Yourself A Programmer, And Other Career... →
Very honest piece. As a software developer of any walk or flavor, you work a market, so you have to sell something, to offer some value to someone. Making yourself hireable entails making this value explicit. So shine away.
Here’s a good quote out of the article that has prompted some bitter responses:
You’re in the business of unemploying people. If you think that is unfair, go back...
4 tags
Ergonomics for programmers: the importance of a...
Scotch tape fetish
Back when I was working for my Ph.D., there was this post-doc in our lab who had this funny habit. He had this big roll of scotch tape by his computer screen. Every morning, as he sat down for work, he tore off a good length of that tape to bind his left-hand ring and pinky fingers together.
“Is this some kind of fetish?”, I asked on a slow day. “No,...