Xah Programing Blog
running into some old articles.
got paid to do someone homework. 2015. lol. racket scheme lisp.
- after 30 years, i think we can say, common lisp and racket scheme r ded.
- ded like perl is ded.
- clojure u no hear it much anymore, like haskell.
- maybe just emacs lisp, is barely kicking in emacs inits.
- but ai is deleting text editors.
random repost.
i truly depise that, doom and quake, and that guy john carmack. lol.
if god can make me a coder like john carmack, i politely decline. π
really, it's just certain type that admires his work. and these people make all the noise. i can name quite a few successful well known coders who are not like that.
e.g. Stephen Wolfram (Wolfram language), Anders Hejlsberg (csharp, TypeScript, turbo pascal), John McCarthy (lisp), Robin Milner (ml, type inference), Xavier Leroy (ocaml), Guy Steele (emacs, scheme lisp, java, fortress etc).
major re-design to nav panels to all programing language tutorials.
here's a list of a few or notable things.
js panel got separated into independent nav panels.
JS Object Reference is now a link in the main js panel in JavaScript in Depth. JS Object Reference was a independent panel before.
the JS: DOM Scripting Tutorial is now independent panel.
also, html, css, all now independent panels. see Xah Web Dev Tutorials
Many other pages, removed the TABLE OF CONTENTS on the main page. Because it has too many links, confusing with the side nav panel, because lots duplicated links. , especially on small phone. Now, just rely on the side panel as primary entry points.
e.g.
some got a extra misc index to hold misc articles
ai stole chess
- me massively coded. but basically useless, due to ai
- but meanwhile, ai is finding errors in my tutorial like xmas tree
- ever since ai beats chess in 1998, since 2005 no human can win a single game, i thought human still playing chess with other human, is silly.
- cuz, the gist of the game is gone for humans. machine finds the best move.
- now, ai writes tutorial better than i can.
- so, i find that, the functional purpose is gone.
- like chess.
lots re-org. redo side panel. etc.
major updates
- Python: Class and Object
- π Python: Extending a Class
- π Python: Class Attributes
- π Python: Functions on Class / Object
- π Python: Variable
Windows11 check disk health
updated.
random updates
added a video.
Marshall Brain died.
A Letter to Marshall Brain (2003) back in 2003, he was doing fear-mongering on robotics. Unfounded. i was offended and wrote a open letter.
Bill Joy (creator of vi) at the time y2k, also, did fear-mongering on robotics, nanotech, and genetic engineering.
"Why the Future Doesn't Need Us" is an article written by Bill Joy (then Chief Scientist at Sun Microsystems) in the April 2000 issue of Wired magazine.
predications by big shots are usually wrong.
updated
python, call shell command.
this changed so much over the past 20 years.
was
subprocess.Popen
around 2006, extremely complex.
Then they added
subprocess.check_output
subprocess.check_call
subprocess.call
also incomprehensible.
now, since python 3.5.
it's just
subprocess.call
misc updates.
major addition. idiotic Microsoft Windows 11. when you switch to light theme, parts of text disappears in task manager.
- ai answered a question i have.
- Why Fsharp PowerShell tutorials do not explain what is dotnet (2026)
I noticed, ai generated programing language tutorials are still inferior than those written by human experts. The ai ones lack coherence and insight.
minor update
- need to update, add golang, fsharp, Wolfram language.
- quick spill:
- golang, ruby, are the most easy to learn.
- golang get you a job.
- fsharp is second easy to learn.
- JavaScript, java, clojure are hard.
- cpp is shit in pure form.
my haskell dabbling, in 2005, that went nowhere.
why special 2d array type, not nested array
Why does F Sharp Programming Language has a dedicated data structure for two dimensional array why can it not be simply nested array
updated.
- π gnu tar doc
- π bsd tar doc
- π Tar archive quadratic time. 2022
- π Why unix tar truncates long file path (2026)
- π Why tar command does not use hyphen (2026)
- π Why not tar archive (by duplicity) (2021)
- unix linux is a pain in the ass.
- a poor sob wanna convert all png in a dir.
- if you do
- find . -iname "*png" -print0 | xargs -0 -L1 -I ttt magick ttt ttt.jpg
- won't work if not bash. because bsd xargs or macOS no agree on options.
- if you do
- for ff in *.png; do magick $ff $ff.jpg; done
- it misses all caps .PNG.
- you need to use shopt to set Case-Insensitive first.
- imperative fuck, and
- won't work on mac or bsd because they no do bash.
- and mac uses zsh, bsd uses sh or tcsh or other fucks, and linux mostly bash.
- In JavaScript, why typeof null return object?
- omg, ai actually gave the best answer. clarity.
- even it stole from the web.
- did ai stole?
- it did, like google image search stole, and wikipedia stole and refry, and stackoverflow stole and refry.
- this is like stackoverflow removed nerds telling u what u should do instead of answering ur question.
- now ai does this to stackoverflow. removed its gate-keeper shit and corp money-making based policies.
- ai stole from stackoverflow and wikipedia, removed stackoverflow's gate-keeping and other shits, remove Wikipedia's academic stilted mumble jumble and much propaganda.
- purified info again for the masses.
- it is, utter corrupt american corp greed doing good by chance.
perl dot com $190_000 hijack
- The Hijacking of Perl.com
- By Brian D Foy.
- https://www.perl.com/article/the-hijacking-of-perl-com/
summarize https://www.perl.com/article/the-hijacking-of-perl-com/
windows check disk tool sfc
- omg, faaked c cpp right there.
- what a great sweep of the turds in computing industry.
added width and height to all html thumbnail image markup, 4372 changes, in 841 files
repost
massive updates and new.
Microsoft Windows tip. clean cache
- πͺ Windows+r
- type
cleanmgr
cleanmgr.exe is the Microsoft Windows command-line utility and executable for the Disk Cleanup tool, designed to free up disk space by removing unnecessary files such as temporary files, internet cache, and old Windows installations.
It is located in C:\Windows\System32\cleanmgr.exe and can be launched via the Run dialog (Windows + R) or Command Prompt.
The tool is safe and part of the Windows operating system, targeting only system-compliant temporary and junk files. However, it was deprecated in Windows 10 version 1803 in favor of Storage Sense. For users preferring the classic interface or additional features, third-party replacements like Cleanmgr+ are available, which offer a modern UI and custom scripts for cleaning browser caches.
old. repost.
- added woxi
- Wolfram Language Clones and Tools
How many times faster is today's computer compared to a computer in 1999?
about one thousand.
quite amazing what we have.
- misery.
- the ligature lovers create complexity.
- and when you work with real unicode math symbols β β₯ β β β‘ β βΊ β§ β¨, you get deth.
- updated.
- the nasty, is that many follow unicode recommendation, of allowing only letters in function or variable names.
- this prevents you from using β β Β° β.
ai generated videos, often have a non-sensical problem. ie people seems to be looking at slightly off the subject they meant to be looking at , or weird approximation of some action...
repost
- C Is Not a Low-level Language, by David Chisnall 2018
- C and Go, Models of Computation. by David Chisnall. 2012
new articles. pulled out from Programing Language and Its Machine (2024)
mino updates
ok , for prog langs, these i find great:
- History of Object Oriented Programing, by Casey Muratori (2025)
- Guy Steele on Parallel Programing. (Get rid of lisp cons) 2011
- Rust in Perspective. Programing Language History. By Linus Walleij (2022)
- Python vs OCaml (2014)
- Write Linux operating system in golang (Biscuit OS) (2024)
- Programing Language and Its Machine (2024)
ok that's it π