todo-did.el complete rewrite

todo-did.el complete rewrite

[Emanuel Berg]

Emacs/shell (here, zsh) interface to a TODO
buffer. Very useful and fast. (`todo-show-file'
ought to be bound to a key, e.g. I have it
`C-j t'.)

In the shell it is just

    $ todo sleep more, take less amphetamine

(Note the lack of apostrophes/quotes!) The next
time you do `C-j t' (or whatever you have it)
it'll be there - sorted, and saved.

Same if you do

    M-x todo RET fix all the bugs in todo-did.el RET

Ain't it cool stuff? :) Please comment!
The last couple of days I have posted tons of
code (of various degrees of advancedness, this
is probably the most advanced) - the last
couple of days I have posted tons of code and
not received a single comment :(
Very disappointing is my honest sensation.

PS. Check the date if you use the URL!
Might get a cached version otherwise. DS.

Aaanyway...

;; This file: http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/emacs-init/todo-did.el
;;
;; Updated: 25-03-2019 05:53
;;
;; zsh companion:
;;
;; set the TODO_FILE env in:  ~/.zshenv
;; 'todo' command:
;;   ~/.zsh/todo
;;   http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/conf/.zsh/todo

(defun todo-get-buffer ()
  (let*((todo-env-var "TODO_FILE")
        (todo-file     (getenv todo-env-var)) )
    (if todo-file
        (or (get-file-buffer    todo-file)
            (find-file-noselect todo-file) )
      (error "Set the env var %s first" todo-env-var) )))

(defun todo-sort-and-save ()
  (sort-lines nil ; not REVERSE
              (point-min) (point-max))
  (save-buffer) )

(defun todo (what)
  (interactive "sdo what: ")
  (let ((todo-buffer (todo-get-buffer)))
    (with-current-buffer todo-buffer
      (goto-char (point-max))
      (insert what)
      (todo-sort-and-save)
      )))

(defun todo-show-file ()
  (interactive)
  (let ((todo-buffer (todo-get-buffer)))
    (set-buffer todo-buffer)

    ;; this if if the file doesn't exist
    ;; but the env is set correctly
    (save-buffer)

    ;; this is if the file
    ;; has changed from the shell
    (revert-buffer t t) ; IGNORE-AUTO NOCONFIRM
    (todo-sort-and-save)

    (switch-to-buffer todo-buffer)
    ))

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: todo-did.el complete rewrite

[Van L]

> The last couple of days I have posted tons of
> code (of various degrees of advancedness, this
> is probably the most advanced) - the last
> couple of days I have posted tons of code and
> not received a single comment :(

You've posted more than 15 LoC and not specified a licens

license and where to safely store all code (was: Re: todo-did.el complete rewrite)

[Emanuel Berg]

Van L wrote:

>> The last couple of days I have posted tons
>> of code (of various degrees of advancedness,
>> this is probably the most advanced) - the
>> last couple of days I have posted tons of
>> code and not received a single comment :(
>
> You've posted more than 15 LoC and not
> specified a licens

Is that where the shoe hurts?

OK, so how does it work to add a license? Do you
just type/yank it as a comment first thing in
the source file?

I have by now ~116 Elisp files! [1] A couple of
them should probably be thrown away as they are
either unaware-of duplicates of what is already
in Emacs, or just plain bad ideas. And many are
just configs with no originality/creativity to
them - well, not in terms of the code anyway :)

So it'll be a smaller number of files, for
sure. Still, surely I don't have to put
I license block in every single one of them?

Is is enough with a LICENSE file in the
same directory?

As for me, the license might as well be "Here is
a bunch of code, do whatever you want with it,
but the author would very much appreciate
comments (mails) on how to improve it or just
a note if you found it useful."

And speaking of files, anyone has a good idea
where to dump all this Elisp? I don't know how
long the university will allow my student (ha!)
home page to remain untouched on their SunOS!

BTW this is a general "problem" for me, I also
have probably as much zsh, some other code
[stats from 2015: 3], my home page...

Where do you guys put all your stuff?


[1] $ ls -1 ~/.emacs.d/emacs-init/**/*.el | wc -l
    116

[2] http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/emacs-init/

[3] http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/code.txt

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

[OFF TOPIC] Re: license and where to safely store all code (was: Re: todo-did.el complete rewrite)

[Emanuel Berg]

> [3] http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/code.txt

BTW cloc(1) is now in the Debian (Raspbian)
repos!

I got it from the web [1] way back in 2015.
Great to hear that such an indispensible tool
has made its way to the elysium of computer
source :)

Time for a re-run, perhaps?


CC to Al Danial who wrote it and Jari Aalto who
wrote the man page.


[1] http://cloc.sourceforge.net 

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: todo-did.el complete rewrite

[Ralph Seichter]

* Emanuel Berg:

> the last couple of days I have posted tons of code and not received a
> single comment :(

Which can possibly tell you something.

How about using GitLab, GitHub or a similar service instead? That would
also be an easy method to deal with licensing issues you mentioned in
another post.

-Ralph

where to put files (was: Re: todo-did.el complete rewrite)

[Emanuel Berg]

Ralph Seichter wrote:

>> the last couple of days I have posted tons
>> of code and not received a single comment :(
>
> Which can possibly tell you something.

If it isn't a secret, what does it tell *you*?

> How about using GitLab, GitHub or a similar
> service instead? That would also be an easy
> method to deal with licensing issues you
> mentioned in another post.

Are those web-interface GUIs?

If so, well first I don't really dig that, but
practically speaking I actually *can't* use
them at the present point because of

  1) too slow computer for advanced,
     JavaScript web pages (an RPi3); and

  2) a projector with a very limited
     resolution:

    #! /bin/zsh

    screen-resolution () {
        DISPLAY=":0" xrandr
    }

    $ screen-resolution
    Screen 0: minimum 576 x 416, current 576 x 416, maximum 576 x 416
    default connected 576x416+0+0 0mm x 0mm
       576x416        0.00*

This is how I do it presently:

    #! /bin/zsh

    MLOGIN=XXX

    # -L --copy-links
    # -p --perms
    # -r --recursive
    # -t --times
    # -u --update ("skip files that are newer on the receiver")
    # -v --verbose
    mcp () { rsync -Lprtuv $@ $MLOGIN: }

    cos () {
        mcp ~/public_html
    }

MLOGIN - ("M" for "MIC", my once university department)
mcp - (ditto cp)
cos - "cp OS"

So what I do is create/edit files in my local
~/public_html all night, then do "cos" in the
morning at bedtime so the stuff gets beamed to
the SunOS, both as a backup but also so I'm
able to reference the files in discussions
here etc.

OK, so now that you know my situation/style, is
there a similar solution around? It doesn't
have to be identical, of course!
Only text/CLI-based, I guess.

"TIA", I was about to write, but if you (or
anyone else) can solve this for me, you are my
HERO(S) :)

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: where to put files

[Ralph Seichter]

* Emanuel Berg:

> If it isn't a secret, what does it tell *you*?

It tells me that what I learned over the last 30+ years is still valid
today: When posting in a mailing list, never expect applause, feedback
or gratitude. The best you can hope for is not to annoy too many people,
unless that's your intended purpose.

>> How about using GitLab, GitHub or a similar service instead?
>
> Are those web-interface GUIs?

Git is available as a command line client, various graphical clients,
and via web UIs. Find a sympathetic person with an Internet-capable
computer and spend some time reading:

  https://git-scm.com
  https://gitlab.com

> OK, so now that you know my situation/style, is there a similar
> solution around?

Git was developed (and is very much used today) to maintain the Linux
Kernel sources in a secure, highly distributed manner, primarily from a
shell and in scripts. The Emacs source code itself is held in a Git
repository, see https://savannah.gnu.org/git/?group=emacs . So yes, Git
can definitely handle your Emacs Lisp files.

Have fun studying the documentation. ;-)

-Ralph

Re: where to put files

[Emanuel Berg]

Ralph Seichter wrote:

>> If it isn't a secret, what does it tell
>> *you*?
>
> It tells me that what I learned over the last
> 30+ years is still valid today: When posting
> in a mailing list, never expect applause,
> feedback or gratitude.

Oh, no! I've been doing that for 10+ years!
Well, not really. I never expected applause,
neither gratitude - well, gratitude perhaps in
the sense "you are creative with the software,
that's good, keep it up", but not gratitude in
the sense "thanks for a bunch of great code,
I'll start using it immediately myself!".

Besides, I think my computer personality
doesn't lend itself to that, either (at least
not 2019, perhaps never).

And I never thought my stuff was brilliant -
creative perhaps, but not anything out of the
ordinary in terms of the technology itself.

But *feedback*? Why shouldn't one expect that
on a mailing list/newsgroup about a particular
piece of software, when the posts are exactly
about that?

> The best you can hope for is not to annoy too
> many people, unless that's your
> intended purpose.

Obviously you are right but I don't understand
it one byte or even bit. If 20 or so guys
posted code here every second day or so,
I would be *delighted* (and offer feedback
wherever I could, even applause and gratitude
for that matter if I liked their stuff that
much I'd use it myself).

> Git is available as a command line client,
> various graphical clients, and via web UIs.
> Find a sympathetic person with an
> Internet-capable computer and spend some time
> reading:
>
>   https://git-scm.com
>   https://gitlab.com

? I have internet - I'm speaking to you right
now! But if by "Internet-capable computer" you
mean JavaScript etc and a monitor with some
computer bum beside me on a couch watching some
nerdy US TV show I'm sorry, never - if it can't
be done all-Emacs-w3m or all-CLI (including the
documentation) I have to recycle a new
computer before I can do it...

But thanks anyway, God willing it will happen.
I have bookmarked those links :)

> Have fun studying the documentation. ;-)

If you think documentation will help you read
it. You better at it.

:)

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: where to put files

[Robert Thorpe]

> Have fun studying the documentation. ;-)
>
> -Ralph

You're an evil, evil man.

BR,
Robert Thorpe

Re: where to put files

[Van L]

Emanuel Berg writes:

>
>     $ screen-resolution
>     Screen 0: minimum 576 x 416, current 576 x 416, maximum 576 x 416
>     default connected 576x416+0+0 0mm x 0mm
>        576x416        0.00*
>
>8-- [snip]
>
> OK, so now that you know my situation/style, is
> there a similar solution around? It doesn't
> have to be identical, of course!
> Only text/CLI-based, I guess.

Can sdf.org meet your needs?

Re: todo-did.el complete rewrite

[Stefan Monnier]

>         (or (get-file-buffer    todo-file)
>             (find-file-noselect todo-file) )

AKA just      (find-file-noselect todo-file)


        Stefan

Re: todo-did.el complete rewrite

[Emanuel Berg]

Stefan Monnier wrote:

>>         (or (get-file-buffer todo-file)
>> (find-file-noselect todo-file) )
>
> AKA just (find-file-noselect todo-file)

Thank you :)

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: todo-did.el complete rewrite

[Stefan Monnier]

> (defun todo-show-file ()
>   (interactive)
>   (let ((todo-buffer (todo-get-buffer)))
>     (set-buffer todo-buffer)
>
>     ;; this if if the file doesn't exist
>     ;; but the env is set correctly
>     (save-buffer)
>
>     ;; this is if the file
>     ;; has changed from the shell
>     (revert-buffer t t) ; IGNORE-AUTO NOCONFIRM
>     (todo-sort-and-save)
>
>     (switch-to-buffer todo-buffer)
>     ))

Have you considered using todo-mode or org-mode for the buffer into
which you add those entries?


        Stefan

Re: todo-did.el complete rewrite

[Emanuel Berg]

Stefan Monnier wrote:

>> (defun todo-show-file () [...]
>
> Have you considered using todo-mode or
> org-mode for the buffer into which you add
> those entries?

No, as wasn't aware of them (or, I was aware of
org-mode in general, but not that it had a todo
list). Anyway that function is no good. I have
made some changes:

;; This file: http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/emacs-init/todo-did.el
;;
;; Updated: 27-03-2019 01:34
;;
;; zsh companion:
;;
;; set the TODO_FILE env in:  ~/.zshenv
;; 'todo' command:
;;   ~/.zsh/todo
;;   http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/conf/.zsh/todo

(defun todo-get-buffer ()
  (let*((todo-env-var "TODO_FILE")
        (todo-file     (getenv todo-env-var))
        (todo-buffer   (if todo-file (find-file-noselect todo-file t) ; NOWARN
                         (error "Set the env var %s first"
                                todo-env-var) )))
    (with-current-buffer todo-buffer
      (revert-buffer t t)) ; IGNORE-AUTO NOCONFIRM
    todo-buffer) )

(defun todo-sort-and-save ()
  (sort-lines nil ; not REVERSE
              (point-min) (point-max))
  (save-buffer) )

(defun todo (what)
  (interactive "sdo what: ")
  (let ((todo-buffer (todo-get-buffer)))
    (with-current-buffer todo-buffer
      (goto-char (point-max))
      (insert what)
      (todo-sort-and-save)
      )))

(defun todo-show-file ()
  (interactive)
  (let ((todo-buffer (todo-get-buffer)))
    (switch-to-buffer todo-buffer)
    (todo-sort-and-save)
    ))

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: todo-did.el complete rewrite

[Amin Bandali]

Hi,

> Ain't it cool stuff? :) Please comment!

I think it’s neat, kudos :)

> 
> The last couple of days I have posted tons of code (of various degrees
> of advancedness, this is probably the most advanced) - the last couple
> of days I have posted tons of code and not received a single comment
> :( Very disappointing is my honest sensation.
>

Sorry to hear you’re feeling disappointed.  I’ve personally saved links
to several of your scripts posted here over the course of time, and I
plan to have a closer look at them in the near future.

I guess there could be multiple reasons for lack of comments, namely

- Considering the “name” of this list (help-gnu-emacs), I wonder if most
  users think of it as a mostly ‘help’-oriented list rather than a more
  general-purpose list as the list description perhaps hints at: “Users
  list for the GNU Emacs text editor”.

- People are likely quite busy, including myself, and may not currently
  have enough time on their hands to quickly and thoroughly read new
  posts to the list and reply.

- License is a valid concern as raised by others in the thread.  In the
  spirit of GNU Emacs, I’d recommend the GPLv3+, but you can of course
  choose other free software licenses as well.

  To license your file(s) under GPLv3+, you

  1. add a license header to each of your files (example [0]), and
  2. add a file named COPYING or LICENSE with the full text of the
     license (see [1] below) to the root directory of your project.

[0]: https://git.sr.ht/~bandali/dotfiles/tree/891c482a8f41de3002a361efce155ab0b0704a79/init.org#L108-121
[1]: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt

Lastly, as to where you could host your elisp files, as someone else
mentioned, sdf.org is a good choice, which provides free (gratis) shell
accounts with a limited storage 20 MB which can be upgraded to 150 MB
for a one-time $36 fee.  See [2,3] for more info.

[2]: https://sdf.org/?faq?MEMBERS?01
[3]: https://sdf.org/?faq?WEB?01

A better option for hosting source code may be using a source revision
control system.  Git is a popular choice these days.  There are a number
of freedom-respecting software forges for hosting your git repositories,
such as GNU’s own Savannah [4], sourcehut [5], and NotABug [6].  If you
decide to use git, Magit [7] is a wonderful piece of software for doing
everything git-related from inside Emacs.

[4]: https://savannah.gnu.org
[5]: https://sourcehut.org
[6]: https://notabug.org
[7]: https://magit.vc

Cheers,

-- 
Amin Bandali
https://aminb.org

what I should do, and the "Emacs News Ezine" (was: Re: todo-did.el complete rewrite)

[Emanuel Berg]

Amin Bandali wrote:

>> Ain't it cool stuff? :) Please comment!
>
> I think it’s neat, kudos :) [...]

Thanks not only for the kind words but
especially the hints and URLs what do do.
I only have one more question, but first -

IIUC it seems my TODO list is as follows:

    1. Dump the files at sdf.org so I don't
       have to worry about loosing 10+ very
       pleasant years of work and my very own
       Emacs and zsh Linux VT system

    2. Physically clone the SD card with the
       system so I dare upgrade it

    3. Get the latest Emacs in the Debian
       and/or Raspbian repos and get all the
       source to work for that version *gulp*

    4. Get the license stuff done and move
       everything to Git

    5. (Hasn't been mentioned, but) isolate
       a dozen or so stand-alone projects that
       I believe in the most and put them on
       MELPA

Sounds good?

Now for the question. If code and projects
aren't announced on listbots/newsgroups, how
will people know about them?

This is not just a question of my projects, but
also the other way around - how will *I* know
what *other* people do?

Can't we have an ENE (the "Emacs News Ezine")
where an editor compiles a list with short
comments on the most recent and
interesting stuff?


PS. Obviously I'm not going to back down from
    my own suggestion, so I volunteer as
    assistant editor. I would volunteer as the
    main editor but I think I'm the least
    suited person for such a job because I only
    know what goes on on my own computer and
    workshop - and sometimes, actually, not
    even that :))

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: what I should do, and the "Emacs News Ezine"

[Michael Albinus]

Emanuel Berg <moasenwood@zoho.eu> writes:

Hi Emanuel,

> Can't we have an ENE (the "Emacs News Ezine")
> where an editor compiles a list with short
> comments on the most recent and
> interesting stuff?

That exists already: the weekly "Emacs news" by Sacha Chua. See for
example <nntp+news.gmane.org:gmane.emacs.tangents>.

No comments, but a very useful list of Emacs related links.

Best regards, Michael.

Re: what I should do, and the "Emacs News Ezine"

[Marcin Borkowski]

On 2019-03-27, at 14:40, Michael Albinus <michael.albinus@gmx.de> wrote:

> Emanuel Berg <moasenwood@zoho.eu> writes:
>
> Hi Emanuel,
>
>> Can't we have an ENE (the "Emacs News Ezine")
>> where an editor compiles a list with short
>> comments on the most recent and
>> interesting stuff?
>
> That exists already: the weekly "Emacs news" by Sacha Chua. See for
> example <nntp+news.gmane.org:gmane.emacs.tangents>.
>
> No comments, but a very useful list of Emacs related links.

I second that.  Sacha, I guess I never thanked you for Emacs news!  They
are an important part of my weekly feed (especially that I don't have
a Reddit account, and I don't look there without being given a link.)

Best,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski

Re: what I should do, and the "Emacs News Ezine"

[Óscar Fuentes]

Marcin Borkowski <mbork@amu.edu.pl> writes:

> I second that.  Sacha, I guess I never thanked you for Emacs news!  They
> are an important part of my weekly feed (especially that I don't have
> a Reddit account, and I don't look there without being given a link.)

My words exactly.

Thank you Sacha.

Re: what I should do, and the "Emacs News Ezine"

[Emanuel Berg]

Michael Albinus wrote:

> That exists already: the weekly "Emacs news"
> by Sacha Chua. See for example
> <nntp+news.gmane.org:gmane.emacs.tangents>.

OK, thank you, I'm now subscribed!

Interesting notation BTW. Is is something one
should use? Nah, I think gmane.emacs.tangents
is enough...

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: what I should do, and the "Emacs News Ezine"

[Amin Bandali]

On 2019-03-27  2:12 PM, Emanuel Berg wrote:
[...]
>
> Thanks not only for the kind words but
> especially the hints and URLs what do do.
> I only have one more question, but first -
>

You’re very welcome.

>
> IIUC it seems my TODO list is as follows:
>
[...]
> Sounds good?
>

Sounds good to me.  Though, in conjunction with MELPA, you might want to
consider making them available on GNU ELPA as well.

>
> Now for the question. If code and projects
> aren't announced on listbots/newsgroups, how
> will people know about them?
>
> This is not just a question of my projects, but
> also the other way around - how will *I* know
> what *other* people do?
>

Yeah, that’s a bit of a tough one.  There are a few ad hoc solutions
like Planet Emacsen [0] and Sacha Chua’s weekly-compiled Emacs News [1],
but there’s no ultimate silver bullet.  Sacha’s weekly Emacs News is a
manually curated list of most recent and interesting stuff from all
over, but usually doesn’t include much in the way of commentary.

[0]: http://planet.emacslife.com
[1]: http://sachachua.com/blog/category/emacs-news/

>
> Can't we have an ENE (the "Emacs News Ezine")
> where an editor compiles a list with short
> comments on the most recent and
> interesting stuff?
>
>
> PS. Obviously I'm not going to back down from
>     my own suggestion, so I volunteer as
>     assistant editor. I would volunteer as the
>     main editor but I think I'm the least
>     suited person for such a job because I only
>     know what goes on on my own computer and
>     workshop - and sometimes, actually, not
>     even that :))
>

Actually, looking at [2], I just discovered the emacs-tangents list [3],
available on gmane as gmane.emacs.tangents, which seems like Sacha posts
her weekly news there too.  Though it’s mostly been only Sacha posting
there for a while, it seems like anyone from the public can post there?
I think it could be a nice place for you and anyone else interested to
participate in, and to announce and discuss projects.

As for volunteering for the compilation, Sacha probably wouldn’t mind
some extra help with her weekly news either :)

[2]: https://savannah.gnu.org/mail/?group=emacs
[3]: https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-tangents

I think it may be worth mentioning emacs-tangents on one of the larger
lists like emacs-devel every now and again, to help spread the word and
make sure people know about it.

Re: what I should do, and the "Emacs News Ezine"

[Van L]

Amin Bandali <bandali@gnu.org> writes:

> I think it could be a nice place for you and anyone else interested to
> participate in, and to announce and discuss projects.

It could be done quarterly [1] covering a beat on the art history of
intellectual abstractions behind source code ideas and their implications.

[1] https://store.laphamsquarterly.us/

Re: what I should do, and the "Emacs News Ezine"

[Amin Bandali]

On 2019-03-28 11:05 AM, Van L wrote:

[...]

>
> It could be done quarterly [1] covering a beat on the art history of
> intellectual abstractions behind source code ideas and their implications.
>
> [1] https://store.laphamsquarterly.us/
>
>

If you’re suggesting we make quarterly compilations (digests) of
projects etc announced on the list, then sure that’s one possibility.

Re: what I should do, and the "Emacs News Ezine"

[Emanuel Berg]

Amin Bandali wrote:

> If you’re suggesting we make quarterly
> compilations (digests) of projects etc
> announced on the list, then sure that’s
> one possibility.

If we exclude the development and distribution
of Emacs itself (including ELPA) - better leave
that to the pros for now - how would a map of
the Emacs World look like?

There are all the mailing lists/newsgroups.
Some are general (e.g.
help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org/gmane.emacs.help [1]),
some are specific
(erc-discuss@gnu.org/gmane.emacs.erc.general [2]).

There are tons of them [3] so to filter out the
the nuggets in a systematic way is from what
I can tell right now virtually impossible - it
would be a "best effort" policy, rather...

Then there is the EmacsWiki. [3]

Then there is the Emacs SX site. [4]

Then there is the MELPA. [5]

Then there are some things (?) going on at
Reddit. [6]

Then there are blogs (?) and apparently
a weekly newsletter (?) which I know nothing
about, which is remarkable after doing Emacs
virtually every day for 10+ years.

THEN there are the Emacs subset of IRC, namely
the channels on freenode, of which #emacs is
the most important, I take it. [7]

So there is material for an "Emacs Quarterly",
no doubt... It doesn't have to be that much
work, mostly lurking, a trained and experienced
eye, and then the familiar kill/yank. Still, it
will be work, no doubt. If it happened tho,
it'd be great :)


[1] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-gnu-emacs
[2] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/erc-discuss
[3] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html
[3] https://www.emacswiki.org
[4] http://emacs.stackexchange.com
[5] https://melpa.org
[6] https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs
[7] https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsChannel

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: what I should do, and the "Emacs News Ezine"

[Van L]

Emanuel Berg <moasenwood@zoho.eu> writes:

> So there is material for an "Emacs Quarterly",
> no doubt... It doesn't have to be that much
> work, mostly lurking, a trained and experienced
> eye, and then the familiar kill/yank. Still, it
> will be work, no doubt. If it happened tho,
> it'd be great :)

Nipsey Hussle was running Vector90 lab.  Eboni K Williams could take his
place as community ambassador, connect world youth talent, for example
what is going on over at (1), continue running Vector90 lab which could
be tasked with what is being discussed in this thread and offer an
on-ramp to the GNU Emacs project.  She is a trained lawyer and could be
an FSF champion of the cause of freedom. (2)

(1) https://youtu.be/Ojopo3nGuKI
(2) https://youtu.be/sHCXGzSjIeg

-- 
© 2019 Van L
gpg using EEF2 37E9 3840 0D5D 9183  251E 9830 384E 9683 B835
				"The quotes are in the book." - Robert Caro

Re: what I should do, and the "Emacs News Ezine"

[Emanuel Berg]

Van L wrote:

> Nipsey Hussle was running Vector90 lab.
> Eboni K Williams could take his place as
> community ambassador, connect world youth
> talent, for example what is going on over at
> (1), continue running Vector90 lab which
> could be tasked with what is being discussed
> in this thread and offer an on-ramp to the
> GNU Emacs project. She is a trained lawyer
> and could be an FSF champion of the cause of
> freedom. (2)

Even tho you made that crystal clear I think
I'll abstain, thank you.

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: what I should do, and the "Emacs News Ezine"

[Sacha Chua]

Hello, Emanuel, Amin, all!

On Wed., Mar. 27, 2019, 10:40 Amin Bandali, <bandali@gnu.org> wrote:

> Now for the question. If code and projects aren't announced on
> listbots/newsgroups, how will people know about them?
> > This is not just a question of my projects, but also the other way
> around - how will *I* know what *other* people do?
> Yeah, that’s a bit of a tough one.  There are a few ad hoc solutions
> like Planet Emacsen [0] and Sacha Chua’s weekly-compiled Emacs News [1],
>

From what I've seen, it seems like discovery works mostly like this:

- Many people stumble across relevant code/posts by searching, if they
happen to think with the same keywords that the authors did
- Many people ask questions on reddit.com/r/emacs, emacs.stackexchange.com,
irc.freenode.net (#emacs), and mailing lists
- Many people read Planet Emacsen or their own collection of Emacs-related
feeds
- A number of people help "glue" the community together by responding to
people's questions and pointing them to either links or better keywords to
search for, or commenting on people's posts with suggestions or
appreciation.
- Quite a few people stumble across stuff while watching videos or looking
at screenshots focusing on something else. This is where we get questions
like "What's the modeline used in this video?"
- When people find people who think like they do (similar workflow or areas
of interest), they like exploring those people's other contributions. This
is where blogs and public source code repositories like Github help a lot.
- Some people actively look for interesting new things in the firehose
(Twitter, Google searches, lots of blog subscriptions outside Planet
Emacsen) and post links to them to aggregators or wikis (irreal.org,
reddit.com/r/emacs, reddit.com/r/planetemacs, awesome-emacs, EmacsWiki)
- A few automated sources help too (new packages, changes to the NEWS
files, etc).
- General discussions and meetups are great too.

Thanks for posting lots of little code snippets. I wonder if having your
own blog would make it easier for people who like one thing of yours to
discover other things of yours. I also see people respond positively to
posts or links on Reddit that start off describing the problem/motivation
and then share a snippet of code or announce a package. Since people use
different keywords to find things, you might think about how other people
would describe that problem too. Screenshots, animated GIFs, workflow
posts, and videos are handy as well.

Also, people often come across posts years later, so it's good to not
expect immediate appreciation. =) I like sharing my little hacks because
writing helps me understand and remember things better (especially months
or years later), and if anyone actually finds things useful, that's a
pleasant surprise. Other people are more deliberate about sharing, and
invest time in packaging things up and writing about them so that they'll
be more useful to more people. You'll find your sweet spot.

> suited person for such a job because I only know what goes on on my own
> computer and workshop - and sometimes, actually, not even that :))
>

You are already totally qualified to write about the resources you find,
what you think about them, how you've been applying them to your own
workflows, what you're curious about next, and so on. =) We're all building
maps through this huge space of possibilities, and every person's map adds
something useful.

Actually, looking at [2], I just discovered the emacs-tangents list [3],
> available on gmane as gmane.emacs.tangents, which seems like Sacha posts
> her weekly news there too.  Though it’s mostly been only Sacha posting
> there for a while, it seems like anyone from the public can post there?
>

Yup, that's open. It's for anything that's Emacs-related but off-topic on
the other lists. Most people reading it are probably used to just seeing
Emacs News, but it's okay to shift that expectation and have a more vibrant
community. People who want just Emacs News in mail form can get it from my
site, so that's okay.


> As for volunteering for the compilation, Sacha probably wouldn’t mind
> some extra help with her weekly news either :)
>

I'm always happy to have awesome things to link to, so you can help out a
lot by contributing links or even making posts I can then link to. =)
Sometimes people e-mail or tweet me stuff, although I generally like
putting the links on something like reddit.com/r/emacs or /r/planetemacs so
that there's an avenue for discussion (and then I can link to the
discussion as well).

Emacs News is a bit on the long but terse side because I try to include
most things I come across, relying on titles and categories to help people
manage information overload. I think it would be pretty neat if someone
went through, say, emacs-devel and highlighted interesting threads a la
Linux Weekly News, or maybe did a longer-term overview of news in a
particular category - maybe even more specific than the ones I have in the
posts. I just updated my Github repo with the emacs-news Org file:
https://github.com/sachac/emacs-news .  There's
a my/emacs-news-collect-entries in my sachachua.com/dotemacs that might be
able to reorganize links, although the categories are pretty coarse-grained
at the moment.

I'd love to see other people's takes on Emacs News!

Sacha

RE: what I should do, and the "Emacs News Ezine"

[Drew Adams]

Wrt posting information, tutorials, articles, ~blog content, snippets, code,... whatever about Emacs and Lisp:

Emacs Wiki is yet another Emacs-community space.

Anyone can post such stuff on Emacs Wiki (duh, it's a wiki).  And anyone can update or otherwise modify info that's there.

Editing content there doesn't use Markdown, but the markup is pretty simple and well documented.

Re: what I should do, and the "Emacs News Ezine"

[Emanuel Berg]

Drew Adams wrote:

> Wrt posting information, tutorials, articles,
> ~blog content, snippets, code,... whatever
> about Emacs and Lisp:
>
> Emacs Wiki is yet another
> Emacs-community space.
>
> Anyone can post such stuff on Emacs Wiki
> (duh, it's a wiki). And anyone can update or
> otherwise modify info that's there.
>
> Editing content there doesn't use Markdown,
> but the markup is pretty simple and
> well documented.

Wikis are great at collecting information in
a systematic way but not really propagating it.
If you want to know about something, it is good
that it's there, but who reads a wiki from
cover to cover in search of something
interesting? Not me, anyway.

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: what I should do, and the "Emacs News Ezine"

[Van L]

Emanuel Berg <moasenwood@zoho.eu> writes:

> If you want to know about something, it is good
> that it's there, but who reads a wiki from
> cover to cover in search of something
> interesting? Not me, anyway.

As told in his interview with Joe Rogan, the way Jorge Masvidal learns
new techniques is to concentrate exclusively, at most, on two in a
training session and drill them until they become reflexive muscle
memory.

You can do a regular `git fetch ; git pull' on the emacs repo to see
something like...

  Updating 1828e9a9b7..8082291773
  Fast-forward
   Makefile.in                       |   2 +-
   build-aux/config.sub              |   5 +-
   configure.ac                      |  52 +++--
   doc/lispref/internals.texi        | 104 +++++++++
   etc/NEWS                          |  24 +-
   lib-src/Makefile.in               |   6 +-
   lib-src/emacsclient.c             |   2 +-

and treat them like useless or discarded objects from modernday China or

  Sewol
  Asiana Airlines Flight 214
  Lion Air Flight 610
  Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302

but treat two like the Antikythera mechanism [1] for learning focus.

And pace out 10-minutes each day to draw a poster of the workings of
Emacs's core and modules using [2..5].



[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism
[2] Evolution of Emacs Lisp by Monnier & Sperber
[3] The Development of the C Language by Ritchie
[4] JPL Institutional Coding Standard for the C Programming Language
[5] Land of Lisp [ https://nostarch.com/lisp.htm ]

-- 
© 2019 Van L
gpg using EEF2 37E9 3840 0D5D 9183  251E 9830 384E 9683 B835
				"The quotes are in the book." - Robert Caro

Re: what I should do, and the "Emacs News Ezine"

[Emanuel Berg]

Van L wrote:

> As told in his interview with Joe Rogan, the
> way Jorge Masvidal learns new techniques is
> to concentrate exclusively, at most, on two
> in a training session and drill them until
> they become reflexive muscle memory. [...]
> but treat two like the Antikythera mechanism
> [1] for learning focus.

To you, I don't seem strong enough on reflexive
muscle memory and learning focus?

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: what I should do, and the "Emacs News Ezine"

[Van L]

Emanuel Berg <moasenwood@zoho.eu> writes:

> To you, I don't seem strong enough on reflexive
> muscle memory and learning focus?

The sense you give from how you've accumulated a useful emacs24lisp
codelibrary is that you are a messy and not a neat personality type.

-- 
© 2019 Van L
gpg using EEF2 37E9 3840 0D5D 9183  251E 9830 384E 9683 B835
				"The quotes are in the book." - Robert Caro

Re: what I should do, and the "Emacs News Ezine"

[Emanuel Berg]

Van L wrote:

>> To you, I don't seem strong enough on
>> reflexive muscle memory and learning focus?
>
> The sense you give from how you've
> accumulated a useful emacs24lisp codelibrary
> is that you are a messy and not a neat
> personality type.

? So do tell, what's the correct way to
"accumulate useful code libraries"?

BTW I'm now on Emacs 25 [1]. The transition was
all but seamless with the new system
version [2]. I like the repository approach much
better than compiling a bunch of stuff
manually, even tho that is very easy, at least
for Emacs.

Actually one can get a more recent version of
Emacs (or whatever is in the repos) with
atp-get/aptitude as well, for specific targets,
with so-called apt pinning [3]. Here is an
example how to do it for w3m-el-snapshot:

    1) add 'testing' to /etc/apt/sources.list,
       in my case

        deb [arch=armhf] http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org/raspbian/ testing main contrib non-free rpi

    2) then in /etc/apt/preferences

        Package: *
        Pin: release a=testing
        Pin-Priority: -10

        Package: w3m-el-snapshot
        Pin: release a=testing
        Pin-Priority: 800

    3) update and install/upgrade with
    apt-get/aptitude


[1] GNU Emacs 25.1.1
    (arm-unknown-linux-gnueabihf, GTK+ Version
    3.22.11) of 2017-09-16, modified by Debian

[2] Linux raspberrypi 4.9.35-v7+ #1014 SMP Fri
    Jun 30 14:47:43 BST 2017 armv7l GNU/Linux

    No LSB modules are available.
    Distributor ID:	Raspbian
    Description:	Raspbian GNU/Linux 9.8 (stretch)
    Release:	9.8
    Codename:	stretch

    Revision	: a02082

    PRETTY_NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch)"
    NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux"
    VERSION_ID="9"
    VERSION="9 (stretch)"
    ID=raspbian
    ID_LIKE=debian
    HOME_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/"
    SUPPORT_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianForums"
    BUG_REPORT_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianBugs"

[3] https://wiki.debian.org/AptPreferences

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: what I should do, and the "Emacs News Ezine"

[tomas]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 202 bytes --]

On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 05:04:56PM +1000, Van L wrote:

[...]

> [2] Evolution of Emacs Lisp by Monnier & Sperber

Woah. Thank you for totally destroying my work plan today.

Cheers
-- tomás

[-- Attachment #2: Digital signature --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 198 bytes --]

Re: what I should do, and the "Emacs News Ezine"

[Emanuel Berg]

tomas wrote:

>> [2] Evolution of Emacs Lisp by Monnier &
>> Sperber
>
> Woah. Thank you for totally destroying my
> work plan today.

Ain't it the truth :) Altho I don't have work
plans, really.

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: what I should do, and the "Emacs News Ezine"

[Van L]

Emanuel Berg <moasenwood@zoho.eu> writes:

>>> [2] Evolution of Emacs Lisp by Monnier &
>>> Sperber
>
> Ain't it the truth :) Altho I don't have work
> plans, really.

IIRC after reading it it used to be a 2x performance gain wasn't good enough, now 3% is.

-- 
© 2019 Van L
gpg using EEF2 37E9 3840 0D5D 9183  251E 9830 384E 9683 B835
"There are 3 ways to learn: by reflection, which is noblest; by imitation, which is easiest; and by experience, which is the bitterest." - Confucius

Re: what I should do, and the "Emacs News Ezine"

[Xavier Maillard]

Hi,

I second that. EW has always been my main GNU emacs inspiration's
source. In the past, I used to contribute there directly from an emacs
buffer.

I find the user dispersion in proprietary systems a huge
mistake and a great loss of time for every user.

-- 
Xavier Maillard                      
e/j:xavier@maillard.im                w:www.maillard.im
m: 06 52 18 63 43 (old)
m: 06 49 60 48 56 (NEW)

GPG:                           9983 DCA1 1FAC 8DA7 653A
                               F9AA BA49 09B7 8F04 DE1B

Re: what I should do, and the "Emacs News Ezine"

[Emanuel Berg]

Sacha Chua wrote:

> You'll find your sweet spot.

The plan is to make 10 or so packs for MELPA
and leave it at that. I'm not a wiki or blog
person and apparently people in general (for
some bizarre reason) aren't fond of me (or
other people for that matter) posting source on
mailing lists/newsgroups. So hopefully MELPA is
a good, final destination for, again, hopefully
the best subset of all my Elisp.

> You are already totally qualified to write
> about the resources you find

... but I never find any.

You OTOH seem to find a lot! How about making
an "editor's pick" parallel edition to your
newsletter, where you don't bombard us with
links like the demolition of Dresden, but
instead pick 10 or so things that really caught
your attention, and write a paragraph or two
what they are and what it is you think is the
most appealing thing(s) about them?

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: what I should do, and the "Emacs News Ezine"

[Sacha Chua]

Emanuel Berg <moasenwood@zoho.eu> writes:

Hello, Emanuel!

> mailing lists/newsgroups. So hopefully MELPA is
> a good, final destination for, again, hopefully
> the best subset of all my Elisp.

MELPA makes it really easy for other people to try out your code, and
people often discover things by searching through the package
descriptions. I pick up new MELPA packages semi-reliably in Emacs News,
assuming my code doesn't have a hiccup.

> instead pick 10 or so things that really caught
> your attention, and write a paragraph or two
> what they are and what it is you think is the
> most appealing thing(s) about them?

If you're looking for that sort of stuff, the blog posts at irreal.org
come with a bit more commentary. I'd love to get back into writing more
detailed Emacs posts myself - maybe when A- starts going to school next
year. At the moment, I can squeeze in just enough time to filter,
categorize, and trim the links that come in via Reddit and other places.
=) If you or anyone else would like to try making a summary like that,
I'd love to link to it!

Sacha

Re: what I should do, and the "Emacs News Ezine"

[Emanuel Berg]

Sacha Chua wrote:

> If you're looking for that sort of stuff, the
> blog posts at irreal.org come with a bit more
> commentary. I'd love to get back into writing
> more detailed Emacs posts myself - maybe when
> A- starts going to school next year. At the
> moment, I can squeeze in just enough time to
> filter, categorize, and trim the links that
> come in via Reddit and other places. =) If
> you or anyone else would like to try making
> a summary like that, I'd love to link to it!

1) I understand, and

2) again, I'm the worst person in the
   whole wide (?) Emacs world for such a task
   as I almost never use other people's stuff.
   I have the MELPA pack for Google Translate
   installed, that is about it. Even for that
   I did lots of stuff [1] of my own.

I'm not saying this is a good thing to do it.
It is just the way it happened to happen.


[1] http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/emacs-init/translate.el

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: what I should do, and the "Emacs News Ezine"

[Van L]

Emanuel Berg writes:

> I'm not saying this is a good thing to do it.
> It is just the way it happened to happen.

What about a podcast as the medium? with stylistic
ideas and inspiration drawing from

  - Aviation Week's Check 6 Podcast
  - AI with AI
  - Darknet Diaries
  - Believe You Me with Michael Bisping [1]

[1] episode 127.
    30 Seconds of Creativity
    cat6 cabling for better line quality than wifi is proposed

-- 
© 2019 Van L
gpg using EEF2 37E9 3840 0D5D 9183  251E 9830 384E 9683 B835
"Pilots are no longer needed, but rather computer scientists" - Donald Trump

Re: what I should do, and the "Emacs News Ezine"

[Emanuel Berg]

Van L wrote:

>> I'm not saying this is a good thing to do
>> it. It is just the way it happened
>> to happen.
>
> What about a podcast as the medium?
> with stylistic ideas and inspiration drawing
> from
>
>   - Aviation Week's Check 6 Podcast
>   - AI with AI
>   - Darknet Diaries
>   - Believe You Me with Michael Bisping

Yes, with Jean-Paul Sartre writing the ToC and
Pablo Picasso doing the ASCII art (using *all*
of the 16 ANSI colors, which are mandatory,
don't listen to Mr. Monnier's color liberalism [1]).


[1] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-gnu-emacs/2019-04/msg00141.html

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: what I should do, and the "Emacs News Ezine"

[Emanuel Berg]

Amin Bandali wrote:

>> Sounds good?
>>
>
> Sounds good to me.

I think I did it! Greetings from Emacs25. Or

    GNU Emacs 25.1.1
    (arm-unknown-linux-gnueabihf) of
    2017-09-16, modified by Debian

This is how it happened [Emacs stuff is point 3]


1. Physically clone the RPi system (on a 16G SD
   card), and give it more space.

    [remove the 16G SD card from the RPi]

    $ fdisk -l

    $ sudo dd bs=4M if=/dev/sdb of=backup-$(date +%Y-%m-%d).img

    [change the SD card to the 32G card]

    $ fdisk -l

    $ sudo dd bs=4M if=backup-2019-04-01.img of=/dev/sdb

    [insert the 32G card into the RPi]

    $ sudo raspi-config


2. Upgrade the system [1]

        $ sudo apt-get update
        $ sudo apt-get upgrade
        $ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

        $ sudo dpkg -C
        $ sudo apt-mark showhold

        ## (I did this manually)
        $ sudo sed -i 's/jessie/stretch/g' /etc/apt/sources.list

        $ sudo apt-get update

        $ sudo apt-get --simulate upgrade

        $ sudo apt-get upgrade
        $ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

        $ sudo reboot

    Worked great, only lots of this


      ## debconf: (Dialog frontend will not
                  work on a dumb terminal, an
                  emacs shell buffer, or
                  without
                  a controlling terminal.)
      ## debconf: falling back to frontend:
                  Readline


    And lots of ~"You have been messing around
    with file one hundred hundredth. Would you
    like to keep your changes?" Of course I do,
    but I'd still had to hit the button every
    time. Perhaps there is some option
    somewhere to set the default answer? It is
    a good idea to find it first, so you can
    just lie down and rest all thru the
    installation... zzz


3. Get Emacs25.

    $ sudo apt apt --fix-broken install
    $ sudo ai emacs25-nox emacs-25-el emacs25-common-non-dfsg
    # sudo apt autoremove

    Then my usual Makefile [2] and incredibly,
    I only got


        In help-custom-font-lock:
        help-font-lock.el:23:30:Warning:
        ‘font-lock-fontify-buffer’ is for
        interactive use only; use
        ‘font-lock-ensure’ or
        ‘font-lock-flush’ instead.


    Not really any clarity what to use, so
    I picked `font-lock-ensure'.

    Then


        In end of data:
        negative-subtraction.el:19:1:Warning: the
        function ‘digit-char-p’ is not known to
        be defined.


    This was more difficult to find - it should
    have the CL prefix, i.e. `cl-digit-char-p'.


    And the easy ones

        In spell: spell-new.el:79:23:Warning:
        ispell-comments-and-strings called with 1
        argument, but accepts only 0

        In sudo-path:
        sudo-user-path.el:2:33:Warning:
        ‘system-name’ is an obsolete variable (as
        of 25.1); use (system-name) instead

        In translate-with-prompt:
        translate.el:29:20:Warning: Pattern t is
        deprecated. Use `_' instead


    Done! I hope...


[1] https://linuxconfig.org/raspbian-gnu-linux-upgrade-from-jessie-to-raspbian-stretch-9

[2] http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/emacs-init/Makefile

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573