Xah Programing Blog Archive 2013-06

lisp rant on twitter this afternoon

i damn hate the lispers, in particular, old Common Lispers. Sputtering scientifically baseless shit.

programing lang communities need more science. Not lore, convention, cult dogma.

it is incredible, that lisp monotonic syntax is a problem seen by all non-lispers and expert lispers, but the lisp cult insists no problem.

then, lispers sing macros, but none ever seen Mathematica pattern matching.

lisper insists regular nested paren, data is code shit, yet when u point out it's not regular, they say it's ok.

while, lispers don't seem to see the XML, Mathematica, both have more regular nested syntax, and code is data too.

it's helpless, because year after year, the cult cultivates untruth. Thoughts are ingrained. like religion.

• Concepts and Confusions of Prefix, Infix, Postfix and Lisp Notations
• Fundamental Problems of Lisp, Syntax Irregularity
• LISP Syntax Problem of Piping Functions
• LISP Infix Syntax Survey
• What Are Good Qualities of Computer Language Syntax?
• Programing: Lisp: Automatic Code Formatting, Lint, Auto Indentation
• Famous Programers on How Common Lisp Sucks

that concludes my Sunday spam

found a new book citing my site. See my blogger: math, symmetry, flatland, by Ian Stewart http://xahlee.blogspot.com/2013/06/math-symmetry-flatland-by-ian-stewart.html

Is Linux Usable?

Linux Audio Problem Pulseaudio

been working with regex daily for 15 years (since 1998). I noticed in recent years, it is one aspect of coding i spend the most time working on, debugging, puzzling, trial'n'erroring.

Encryption: What's Perfect Forward Secrecy?

Unicode Search 🔎 . Now you can enter a number like this #97 and get the Unicode char with that codepoint.

Python: Compute Exact Fractions

# python 3

import fractions

print( fractions.Fraction(5,100)) # 1/20
print( fractions.Fraction(4,100)) # 1/25
print( fractions.Fraction(3,100)) # 3/100
print( fractions.Fraction(2,100)) # 1/50

Note that Mathematica had this feature, transparently, since 1990.

In Mathematica, any exact number are computed exactly. Number without a decimal dot are exact.

LISP Infix Syntax Survey

Lisp vs Perl Syntax, the Cult Problem

Unicode Search 🔎 . Pure JavaScript implementation. No JavaScript library used.

Emacs Projects Proposal: Language Aware Modes for Emacs Lisp, HTML5, CSS http://xahlee.blogspot.com/2013/06/emacs-projects-proposal-language-aware.html

Cygwin vs VirtualBox (updated)

Cygwin Path and Windows Path Conversion (updated)

Cygwin Essential Install List (updated)

Installing Cygwin Tutorial (updated)

How to Install Linux on VirtualBox (updated)

http://xahlee.blogspot.com/2013/06/functional-programing-jargon-lambda.html Jargon Lambda in Decline

on vi Keybinding vs Emacs Keybinding

Why You Need a Jog-Wheel and Shuttle Control? (updated)

JavaScript Book by David Flanagan, and the Man-made Complexity in Computer Language

Linux: rsync Tutorial (old article, updated)

Linux: Comparing Files and Dir: diff (old article, on its own page, updated.)

Linux: Walk Dir: find, xargs
(old article, updated, on its own page.)

Linux: Text Processing: grep, cat, awk, uniq (old article, updated.)

Linux. ASCII man page. In terminal, type man ascii. Note that Unicode has symbols to represent ASCII chars. See: ASCII Characters. (thx to [Nick Alcock https://plus.google.com/115849739354666812574/posts])

Linux: is Manpage Getting Obsolete?

Unix Pipe as Functional Language. Old article. A survey of unix command line syntax confuse ball. Added a section at bottom, on the command line syntax evolution of past decade.

Book Review: JavaScript by David Flanagan

updated. Linux: Job Control

git tip: revert to last commit

when you just pulled from remote, and realized it didn't work, you can quickly revert.

# revert to commit before last

git checkout HEAD@{1}

thanks to [Craig Lennox https://plus.google.com/106755567823847315958/posts]

Linux: How to Upgrade Xfce

RIP: rsync, 1996 to 2013. Killed by git

updated. Programable Keypads

git tip. What's git {origin, master, object, index}? See: Git: Frequently Asked Questions

new page. Git: Show Difference Between Files

Slim, another markup, indentation-based, HTML template. What is Slim Markup?

Scroll to the top, and you'll see Lang Design in the nav bar. That's a collection of articles on language design. There's one principle: Syntax, is the most important element of a language. And, the syntax, should be one with a simple and systematic grammar. Mathematica and lisp are examples close to that principle.

Tech Geeking: Ruby Rails Mongrel Thin Zed Shaw

Tech Jargon of the Day: shard

A database shard is a horizontal partition in a database or search engine. Each individual partition is referred to as a shard or database shard.

Horizontal partitioning is a database design principle whereby rows of a database table are held separately, rather than being split into columns (which is what normalization and vertical partitioning do, to differing extents). Each partition forms part of a shard, which may in turn be located on a separate database server or physical location.

source: Shard (database architecture)

Linux: Record Terminal Session, Log Shell Output

random notes. Database Tech 2012

YAML, a data format like XML and JSON. What is YAML?

started to write this tutorial. Linux: Package System {dpkg, apt-get} Tutorial Incomplete, but had to start somewhere.

Linux: Ruby Rails sqlite3 libsqlite3-dev libssl-dev Install Error

some programers, say that the best way to avoid typing injury is not to touch-type. Updated article: Bad Keyboard Advice from Programers. What do you think?

How Many Keystrokes Programers Type a Day?

updated. Microsoft Sidewinder Gaming Keyboards

cygwin git push error: “error setting certificate verify locations”

when using Cygwin, doing git push, you get this error:

error: error setting certificate verify locations:

Solution: install “ca-certificates” in Cygwin.

updated. Linux: How to Switch to LXDE, Xfce

Linux: Setting Default App

Python: format number in human readable way

Example:

# python 3

print("{:,}".format(78515573)) # 78,515,573

This is available in both python 2.7 and 3. Detail: Python: Format String

Linux Idiocy: Eject Drive Warning

Linux Idiocy: Eject USB Drive Warning

Dropbox tip. To sync files outside the Dropbox folder, just create a soft link. On Linux or Mac Os X, do like this:

ln -s ~/web ~/Dropbox/mywebsite

On Mac, creating a file alias should also work.

On Microsoft Windows, creating a file shortcut should work. If not, please let me know.

For Mac users, a new keyboard designed for Mac. Compact, and mechanical keys. Keyboard: Matias Mini Tactile Pro .

Linux: Virtual Terminal

Linux: Terminal Control Sequence Keys ⌨

Linux: Ctrl+s Freeze vim

Symbols for Super, Hyper keys

Linux. Here's a proposal of a logo/symbol for the Super and Hyper key:

• Super Key ❖ (BLACK DIAMOND MINUS WHITE X, 10070, x2756)
• Hyper Key ✧ (WHITE FOUR POINTED STAR, 10023, x2727)

For Ctrl, Opt, Alt, etc, see: Unicode: Keyboard Symbols ⌘ ↵ ⌫