Hexstream

"So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated."

Hi HN, I noticed that the wikipedia page for Dvorak has been significantly expanded since the last time I read it. I now feel it's pretty comprehensive and makes a compelling case so I thought I'd submit it.

Personally I've been using Dvorak for about 3 years and never looked back. I've been using a TypeMatrix keyboard for about that long and I love it. I immediately changed bindings for all the modifiers so I can press them with my thumbs. Here's my "changes.txt" file, which relocates modifiers:

!mod1 = Alt !mod5 = AltGr remove Shift = Shift_L Shift_R remove Control = Control_L Control_R remove mod1 = Alt_L remove mod5 = ISO_Level3_Shift

keysym Next = Shift_L keysym Shift_L = Control_L keysym Shift_R = F32 keysym Control_L = Control_R keysym Prior = Alt_L keysym Alt_L = ISO_Level3_Shift keysym ISO_Level3_Shift = Prior keysym Control_R = Next

add Shift = Shift_L add Control = Control_L Control_R add mod1 = Alt_L add mod5 = ISO_Level3_Shift

This way I press control with my left thumb, shift and alt with my right thumb. Right-shift is remapped to F32, which I then bind to opening parentheses and putting the cursor inside (lisper here). And other misc stuff.

I'm a bit surprised whenever someone says that Excel is functional programming. It's more accurately described as dataflow programming.

To illustrate, Common Lisp directly supports functional programming but not dataflow programming (though it's possible to implement as a library).

You know, I consider setting up filters in gmail to be a form a very high-level programming (DSL), and it's so easy that nonprogrammers can use them.

DSLs in general can do more than dumb skinning... bad example.

1. The values of :after methods are ignored. 2. You're calling person-age from within the method so you enter infinite recursion.

What you were looking for is:

  (defmethod person-age :around ((someone person))
    (let* ((age (call-next-method))
	   (category (if (< age 16) 
		         :child
		         (if (>= age 66)
			     :senior
			     :adult))))
       (values age category)))

"Still, it comes off as hypocritical that a director of the App Store sells apps that some might call inappropriate, said Ben Kahle, developer of Me So Holy, a satiric religious app that Apple rejected in mid-2009 for containing “objectionable material.” Kahle said after he re-submitted the app to the store, an Apple employee called him and said Me So Holy would “never” be approved."

Obvious stuff. Never underestimate the power of well-established special interest groups. There's no powerful interest group against farts so of course it's not considered "objectionable", unlike religion.

The immovable brick wall of change? That doesn't sound right...

Well, I consider that they're "almost white" in relation to the piss-yellow I used to have. But the difference is dramatic nonetheless.

I used to have really yellow teeth because I brushed my teeth really rarely (thank goodness I never smoked). I've had some periods where I brushed them more often but I'd quickly fall back into hopelessness.

Then I hung a small calendar in the bathroom where I cross each day that I brush my teeth, and the "I don't want to break my win streak" feeling is so RIDICULOUSLY compelling that it's been many months now and I brush my teeth almost every day, in fact I didn't miss one day since 1 month and 3 weeks ago.

DON'T underestimate the sheer POWER of "win streaks".

My teeth are almost white now!

Uh. You just paste back and save again, no?

There actually isn't a lot of prerequisite knowledge before you can learn Rete, just general knowledge of graphs I think.

I did spend a lot of time trying to understand how it all works with pen and paper, reading the original Rete description and the wikipedia article, it's a bit annoying because it seems descriptions of Rete are very few AND they use different terminology and approaches to explaining, AND there are really a lot of implementation choices to make depending on the specifics of your problem, so I had a lot of difficulty wrapping my head completely around the concept.

In fact, the first implementation I made was very contrived and I unknowingly bypassed a lot of problems and I didn't even know my understanding was still incomplete. It's only when I tried to make another implementation for a more difficult problem that I realized and fixed my lackings.

Now that I really understand it though, it really doesn't sound that complicated to me anymore, it's pretty "simple and intuitive". If I didn't remember all the pain I had to go through to understand it, I might think that it's in fact a pretty simple algorithm. I think the way too abstract and obtuse descriptions of it are to blame for much of the difficulty because there really isn't a lot to the fundamentals of the algorithm (though the explosion of implementation choices can get messy to sort through).

I guess about now would be a great time for me to start a blog. ;)

This. The keyword is: S-U-S-T-A-I-N-A-B-I-L-I-T-Y.

A noprocrast of 3 days works great for me!

I can't pick one so I'll say:

Learning Common Lisp;

Making my own (unreleased) web framework from scratch;

Learning the Rete algorithm (very fast matching of many patterns against many data items). It's the most elaborate algorithm I can implement, it was hard to learn mostly because of how incredibly abstract the descriptions of it are, but it's applicable in many situations to make really cool features possible so it was well worth it.

"Most of the Haskell/Lisp developers I know just use Vi or Notepad."

Uhh, what? In Lisp's case, most people use emacs and coding Lisp in Notepad is mostly IMPOSSIBLE because trying to balance parentheses and navigate and indent s-expressions manually (and correctly) is idiotic.

Gee, seems like Scientology's got some competition, there.

1.0 is a magic number for versions.

A lot of people will magically start to treat you as a real contender when you release it, even if you've been viable for several months or even years.

"I always sound like I know exactly what I'm talking about, and often I don't, so don't hesitate to tell me I'm wrong;"

Ah, gosh. Now I need to retroactively reconsider all your posts that I took at face value. Well done :/

"I wonder what goes through a customer's head as he/she scrolls through pages of free versions to buy a $0.99 flashlight."

"It's infinitely more expensive! It must be infinitely better!!!"

I remapped my CTRL, ALT and Left Shift keys so I can easily press them with my thumbs in any combination (I use a TypeMatrix).

No more alternating nonsense. Pressing modifiers is instantaneous and requires no thought.

And http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llvm

That's an article from May 01, 2000. That's 10 years ago.

The situation of Lisp in that timeframe has improved by leaps and bounds. Much better documentation, many more libraries, less community fragmentation (SBCL has become the clearly-best-supported implementation), better OS integration, new exciting stuff like Clojure, etc.

It's back up.

You get raped by default unless you "opt-out". It's become a tradition. Because after all, where's the wrongdoing if you can opt-out, eh? Sometimes I hate the world.

There's a name for that: Unwarranted Self-Importance.

"Use the manuals from your TV, microwave, vacuum cleaner, and so on that have the instructions printed in English, French, and Spanish to relate the two "dead" languages to a language you understand (English). The idea is that these manuals are your Rosetta Stone."

WARNING: I have repeatedly found the translations of houseware manuals to be thoroughly broken. I often read the English part even though my native language is French because English is, if not the original language, at least well-supported. The French version has pathetic grammar and lacks many accents and has some in wrong places, with bad grammar.

What, he's not the one snatching nickels in front of an oncoming bulldozer. ;P

I wonder if the whole would make sense or just be a big haphazard mess with only local coherence?...

I really don't know what people have against Tintin.

Maybe because I grew up with a partial collection of it that I inherited from my brothers.

Can you explain what's disturbing about it?