org2blog vs MarsEdit
September 20, 2022
I’ll probably update this post over time as I do more work with both…
I’ve loved MarsEdit for years as the best blog editor, through generational shifts in what blogging meant and how it fit into the landscape. It is, however, a Mac only tool, which in itself isn’t bad but it doesn’t include iPad or iPhone… And it doesn’t expose it’s moving parts to be extended (I’d love to know how to make emacs the external editor for marsedit for example.)
org2blog as an extension of orgmode makes it unique, as it leverages a format and style I adore, and uses barely marked up plaintext… So I’ll be seeing if I can make Shortcuts which can take a subtree or orgmode file and post to WordPress out of band from emacs itself.
Why Emacs has Buffers – Mastering Emacs
June 8, 2022
Why Emacs has Buffers – Mastering Emacs:
If you’re new to Emacs, you may wonder why you read and write text from buffers as opposed to, you know, files or documents. There’s the fact that it’s not skeuomorphic, and thus the term lacks the spark that connects it to a real-life concept. Most people have heard of files and documents in real life, and the term buffer is instead a capacious term with little grounding to most people.
To computer scientists and programmers alike, however, the term buffer has meaning and purpose; it’s still an unsatisfactory answer, even if it is the real reason why Emacs uses the term buffer. And just leaving it there – that a buffer is a chunk of memory and used as a means of shuttling data to and fro peripheral hardware, like your disk – does not go far enough in explaining why. All editors use buffers internally.
In Emacs, the buffer is the focal point of nearly all user (and machine!) interactions. You read and you write, and you do so in a structure that tugs at its roots in computer science, but it’s so much more than that. And that’s really what I want to talk about, as it will go a long way towards explaining why Emacs and Emacs Lisp is the way it is.
A Developer’s Second Brain on Plaintext | by Junji Zhi | Gusto Engineering | Apr, 2022 | Medium
April 14, 2022
A Developer’s Second Brain on Plaintext | by Junji Zhi | Gusto Engineering | Apr, 2022 | Medium:
As a developer, I have to juggle the information among different levels of products, systems, processes, and people.
Each obligation, even if it seems small, requires my brain to retain some information, in order to make quality decisions about what’s next.
When I switch contexts, my brain is not willing to let go of all the information. It seems that my subconsciousness figures out that I would need it later, and if I let go, I may lose it forever, so it decides to hang on to it.
Orgdown – the Interesting Feedback Phase so Far
December 5, 2021
Orgdown – the Interesting Feedback Phase so Far:
The reddit posting was a different thing altogether. The feedback was bad to very bad with only a few positive bits here or there. There was no discussion on the idea at all, just the topic on the choice of the name. When I got heated and wrote that I’d probably prefer to take the project offline, somebody wrote:
This is why we can’t have nice things. The FOSS community tends towards toxic at times, and that can drown out anyone trying to add new things…
The Way of Emacs
September 22, 2021
In my desire to use org-mode, I got sucked into the abyss and have come out a believer.
I was an emacs user before I found org-mode, but it has become my go-to means of quickly managing thoughts, notes, numbers or anything else across all my devices on way or another, and in plain-text that can be reused across myriad other tools with minimal friction.
My dream is finding a way to use org-mode in any text-field in macOS, iOS, and iPadOS so I can leverage the power with all the other secret sauce the Apple ecosystem adds.
Alex Schroeder: 2021-07-01 How to make conversation
July 5, 2021
Alex Schroeder: 2021-07-01 How to make conversation:
Anyway. All of this to say that we need to imagine positive outcomes for the things we say. It’s a bit like chess. There’s a thing somebody said. There’s the thought we’re holding in our mind. We’re ready to give that reply. Now, quick: imagine how the other person is going to react. Is this going to turn into an interesting conversation? If not, I’m already bored. Talk to somebody else. At the very least, ask a question. If you’re going to produce insults, or implied insults, or trying to score points on technicalities, I’m not interested. Learn about interacting with people, first.
Emacs: smarter search and replace
June 28, 2021
Emacs: smarter search and replace:
While I rarely need to apply additional logic when replacing matches, it’s nice to know we have options available in our Emacs toolbox. This prompted me to check out replace-regexp’s documentation (via M-x describe-function or my favorite M-x helpful-callable). There’s lots in there. Go check its docs out. You may be pleasantly surprised by all the featured packed under this humble function.
Pocket Realities 