Just spent a good half hour pulling my hair out trying to figure out why one of the #elisp functions I had just written was always returning nil when I tested it. Turns out, my test was mistakenly passing its inputs to the wrong (but similarly named) function (pivot-table-get-columns instead of pivot-table-get-body).
It sounds like the sort of thing a more type-ful Lisp implementation would have detected too. I bet SBCL would have have given you a compiler note warning of an analogous problem, for example.
C's type system would also have caught it, and it isn't worth a hill of beans.
By caught it what do we mean? This is not a case of some undetected error escaping your attention due to dynamic typing. You know you got a nil which is unexpected and wrong. It's in a test case which catches it.
The only thing a type system would change is that you would instead waste a half hour not understanding how your obviously correct function call can possibly have the wrong return type.
So Katy has a #Jinhao10 and today the clicker seems to be jamming. When pressed, it seems to resist extending or retracting the nib. I'm giving it a cleaning right now to make sure there was no debris or anything in there stopping it from working, but I don't know if that'll fix it.
Has anyone experienced this before? Is there a fix?
I have a function, pivot-table-get-columns (shorthanded as pt-get-columns). Its job is to take an #OrgMode table and produce an alist of mappings of column names to column numbers. The column names are as defined by section 3.5.10 of the org-mode manual.
Edit: I've been beating my head against a wall for some time on this getting nowhere and less than a minute after asking this, I see it. My first unless should be a when. I'll fix it later.
what does org table source look like by the way? I normally pass org tables into org source blocks (where they become s-expressions in lisp), but I'm not sure what the tables look like internally to org.
further about eq in common lisp at least, I've seen people make a mistake before- when you compile code, if you referred to "" twice, in common lisp compilers are allowed to coalesce them at which point they /will/ be eq. (Eq would be a good test to see if they /had/ been coalesced). But in the general case two strings entered in different places are not eq.
@screwlisp I've not seen the comma prefix used outside a macro before. Also, this would probably be better written as: (push (cons (format "%s" cell) n) result)
it is very exciting! commas have to appear inside backticks, and backticks are just quotes that can have certain things inside of them unquoted (using a comma).
Macros to a large extent work like this because one principle of lisp is that lisp code be regular lisp sequences. At read time, the function names are just symbols. So it's a list of symbols/atoms and lists.
However, sometimes we /do/ want to run some code, hence backtick and comma/unquote.
Backquote forms are merely list (S-expression) constructors where some pieces are constant and some pieces are evaluated. (The latter are marked with commas.) Such forms can be used anywhere. Obviously they are often used in macros, because macro functions construct lists (S-expressions).
I often write `(,foo ,bar) instead of (list foo bar) because the former seems clearer, especially when the structure is more involved.
#cfw got an org-table import/export functionality. Just select the org-table and run M-x cfw-org-load. Analyse, sort, edit, filter your table in CFW. Then update the original org-table by M-x cfw-org-save.
If there was no original org-table (the table was created from scratch or from other source like CSV), the cfw-org-save places the exported table into the kill-ring. This way org pivottables can be generated from CFW.
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So, keeping a #journal in #teeline has had some unexpected benefits for my #ADHD brain beyond my handwriting just being more able to keep up with the rate of my thoughts.
I might blog about this later, but the TL;DR is that the process of transcribing my entries requires me to think deliberately about the meaning of every word I've written.
For all the criticism I have of dynamically typed languages, I have to admit that the way #elisp (and presumably #lisp in general) does in-line documentation is pretty nice.
The seemingly canonical way of detecting whether the C-u modifier was used on an interactive function call (when an actual numerical argument wasn't provided) in #elisp feels... icky. #emacs
Nintendo in my email today: We have updated our terms of service. If you agree, do literally nothing. If you disagree, please jump through the hoops necessary to delete your account.
Wrapping my brain around using #org-mode as a spreadsheet. Is there a way to pass a range of cells as a vector to a custom function? Ideally, I'd like to embed this function into the file itself. #emacs
That shows you how to define a column formula with elisp. I think think usual "vsum" and friends are vector operations from the emacs calculator, so it seems very likely?
I gotta go to the bike shop, but my heuristic would be:
1. I know vsum works in org-mode spreadsheet formulas 2. I know the v stands for "vector" 3. Can I use that function's source to define my own vector operations?
I like to think the answer is YES. I am hopeful at least.
@Shae Erisson So, of appears that I can pass simple (single cell) references into raw elisp functions, but not ranges. I'll have to have a closer look at vsum as mentioned earlier to see if there's a solution there.
Hi @me If you insert a formula in a table cell #orgmode will put it after the table in a special line (so you can see and edit it after) and insert the result in place. Of course, it can be recalculated anytime you want to.
I guess you could fairly easily write a macro that automatically created a lexical scope and added some prefixes to variable used within its body - Doug Hoyte's "Let over lambda" book has #CommonLisp examples of this kind of approach as way to cut down the syntactic overhead of using gensym in macros. Without much thought, I'd assume something similar could be done in #EmacsLisp
@The ol' tealeg 🐡 I'm thinking something a little more robust involving using a symbol's property list to store everything contained within that namespace.
I'm probably biting off more than I can chew at this point in my understanding of elisp, but I'm sure this idea will stick around in my brain until I have enough of an understanding to pull it (or something comparable) off.
...or I find some already existing thing that does what I want (which is more likely).
SBCL, for example, has the in-package macro set the value of the special variable *PACKAGE* which, I guess, would then ultimately get used in every definition and reference.
I haven't having looked at it, but I imagine that it mostly comes down to switching out in-buffer eval functions to those which are current-package aware. If you resolve and swap out all symbols with their "absolute" versions during definition, you should be able to call that code from different namespaces without problems.
where (:use nil) serves the same purpose as (:use :cl) in Common Lisp.
Afterwards, you can either do
(in-namespace :foo) ...
or
(with-namespace :foo ...)
You should also be able to file-locally set `buffer-namespace', but I haven't tried it.
Here's a working snippet:
(define-namespace :foo (:use nil) (:export bar setq nil))
(define-namespace :baz (:use :foo) (:export bar))
(with-namespace :foo (setq foo 2))
foo:bar ;; => 2
(with-namespace :baz (setq bar 5) (setq quux 10))
foo:bar ;; => 5 baz:bar ;; => 5 baz:quux ;; => 10
although you'll need to patch elisp--preceding-sexp for C-x C-e to see the individual values. Here's the code you need to evaluate (at least on my version, I suggest trying this in a fresh emacs in case something goes wrong): 0x0.st/84sj.txt
I have fleshed it out more (or rather, ported over CL's packages): git.sr.ht/~thuna/cl-package (this is still the same repo, but I've changed the name).
The demo is: - require cl-package / load cl-package.el - require cl-package-reader / load cl-package-reader.el - go to a new buffer (or the scratch buffer) - M-x cl-package-activate-reader RET - Insert the snippet - Do eval-buffer, or after applying the same patch as before (replace `(read...)' with `(funcall load-read-function...)' in `elisp--preceding-sexp') go through each form (you can skip cl-in-package) one by one with C-x C-e - Have fun
The snippet is:
(cl-defpackage test (:use :global) (:shadow baz) (:export baz))
Where the second nil means that no symbol with the literal name "test:baz" exists in emacs, and that the symbol we're referring to with test:baz is something else entirely, which you can also see with:
(eq (intern "test:baz") 'test:baz) => nil
There are probably a lot of problems, some of which are: - defpackage does not play nice with redefinitions (or rather, you can't do it at all), just pop cl-package-registry (but not completely, always leave the last item, if you want to fully reset it set it to (list obarray)) and redefine it again - I have the elisp runtime in the pseudo-package :global, but trying to use :global in your own package will force it to check all (tens of thousands of!) symbols for conflicts, so it'll take a couple seconds during the defpackage in the snippet. I will later define packages containing the various elisp packages for proper modularity, so it should get better - Once you evaluate cl-in-package, eval-buffer starts with cl-in-package, which it probably shouldn't be doing, but I don't know and who knows how many more!
@screwtape Oh come on you understand the situation perfectly ;) You can write hacks to make it look like there are namespaces, but at the end of the day, they are just hacks.
There has been multiple discussions about it on emacs-devel, and there is no way to get elisp out of the dark ages until the usual suspects are replaced. Which is not happening any time soon.
@screwlisp @Nicolas Martyanoff If you think I'd actually have anything interesting to say. I feel I can't really hold a candle to some of your previous guests. I'm just aimlessly noodling around with stuff.
You know I like to set an extremely low bar for quality personally. And after all, everyone eats at your sushi place every week...!
It's also interesting to everyone to get opinions on common lisp from the outside or somewhat recent arrivals. I think you and jeremy_list are both interesting as sort of Haskell/MOO/emacs/common lispers.
Counterpointing the "golang for serious business" long-time lisp-heads like @galdor
So, I've finally settled on a technique to keep shimmer inks from clogging my #FountainPens and it's working well, but it's not exactly condusive to writing in #teeline which is what I use 90% of the time these days.
It looks like I wasn't moving the pen enough. As I would keep writing, the shimmer would collect in the feed until it just straight-up clogged. I didn't realize I had to periodically roll the pen around even while I was actively using it. This should have been obvious by the fact that my writing kept getting more and more, well... shimmery before the ink stopped flowing.
I'll try this approach in the future.
Rookie mistake, but in my defense, I didn't even know that shimmer inks were even a thing until late last year.
It always amuses me whenever I think about the fact that I got one of my favourite #FountainPens for free with a bottle of ink. It's even more amusing that I've never inked that pen up with that ink.
@Kate McDonald It's a bit of a pain to work with because I only use it with a dip pen* and have to juggle that with a UV flashlight. That aside, it works really well. Completely invisible under normal lighting conditions and shows up really well under UV.
* Because I feel that cleaning it out of a regular pen would be a pain.
So, with this past #Inkvent calendar, I've found myself in possession of a bunch of shimmering inks. Problem is that they tend to clog my #FountainPens. Are there any inexpensive pens that handle shimmering inks well?
I've found that my Wing Sung 3008s don't clog up much anyway, and when they do they're easy to take apart to clean them, at least once you know how. Also cheap enough to be disposable once they break. 😀 The downside is that they're known for cracking and/or the screw in the cap rusting, hence the importance of being cheap.
I've cleaned out two this weekend - I can't usually get the last little bits of glitter out, but what's left doesn't seem to block it when reassembled.
huh, weird. Which ink? There are some in the inkvent that have larger and too much shimmer and is basically for dip pens as far as I'm concerned, I don't remember what they're marked with - not shimmer or chameleon but something like star bright or something.
@redbanjer 🪕🇺🇦🇨🇦🇬🇱🇲🇽 Yeah, dip pens were my go-to solution. It's just annoying to have to keep mixing up the ink in the bottle in addition to continually dipping the pen.
I bought a few of those small plastic "Dinky Dips" ink containers- they come in three sizes. I can use my ink syringe to put some of my shimmer ink into a Dinky, add a drop or two of Gum Arabic (to help make it more dip nib friendly), and it's a better size--- you can use the dip nib to stir the ink each time you dip it in, since it's not that deep and the container mouth is wide (straight up and down shape). Inks stores well in it, the plastic cap screws tight. Just a thought!
It looks like I wasn't moving the pen enough. As I would keep writing, the shimmer would collect in the feed until it just straight-up clogged. I didn't realize I had to periodically roll the pen around even while I was actively using it. This should have been obvious by the fact that my writing kept getting more and more, well... shimmery before the ink stopped flowing.
I'll try this approach in the future.
Rookie mistake, but in my defense, I didn't even know that shimmer inks were even a thing until late last year.
I have successfully built my first #Emacs package. I want to clean it up a bit before I consider releasing it though. Also, while I can build a simple (single file) package, buildig a multi-file one is still eluding me.
When I try to install it, I get the following (less than helpful) error message: Wrong type argument: stringp, nil
Is there a way I can get more detail on why this is failing?
If you use M-x toggle-debug-on-error, you should get a full stack trace showing what was called, with what value and from where. That should at least get you started.
So getting a stack trace doesn't seem to have provided any useful additional information, but I have a potential starting point. When I look at the auto-generated *-pkg.el file from the installed single file version, I notice that there are some additional parameters passed to define-package that were not mentioned in the elisp documentation.
To demonstrate that I'm not crazy, this is from section 42.3 of the elisp manual: Function: define-package name version &optional docstring requirements
This is from the documentation for define-package: (define-package NAME-STRING VERSION-STRING &optional DOCSTRING REQUIREMENTS &rest EXTRA-PROPERTIES)
So Katy has a #Jinhao10 and today the clicker seems to be jamming. When pressed, it seems to resist extending or retracting the nib. I'm giving it a cleaning right now to make sure there was no debris or anything in there stopping it from working, but I don't know if that'll fix it.
Has anyone experienced this before? Is there a fix?
Is the trap door opening/closing properly? It could be wedged somehow. You should be able to poke the nib unit through it manually with the top removed and see if it works as expected.
Also when it's apart you can press the rear of the nib unit up into the tail and press the button and see if it operates normally that way.
Then you at least know which end of the pen is misbehaving.
@Jim P. It looks like there was some debris caught in the mechanism. A good cleaning seems to have resolved the issue. I'm a little confused as to where it came from though.
Coming down off a panic attack relapse. I'm medicated and laying in bed in the dark. I don't know of this was the right strategy, but I needed to stop the fireworks in my brain, and shutting out as much external stimulus as possible seemed the right thing to do.
As a side note, I'm now pretty much convinced I'm somewhere on the spectrum. This felt a lot like the way I've heard an autistic meltdown to be. Sounds were particularly jarring. Katy was packing up her equipment to send back to her old job and the sound of the packing tape was actually painful.
I can think of a number of other incidents where I've become seemingly irrationally agitated at something that should have been a minor thing, and any form of external stimulus whatsoever only made it worse (which really sucks when people try to "help").
That's very much an AS response. Some noises, physical sensations, environments are just intolerable, as if they're actively attacking your brain the way allergens do your immune system.
Finding out that my responses to things were *real*, and not just me being temperamental, was a big help.
Katy likes these YouTube channels where they teach about canning and such. One of the people in one of these videos is wearing a shirt with what looks like an AR-15 that says "defense is not a crime".
What in the cinnamon toast fuck do you need an AR-15 to defend yourself from?
How about: The current version of the Stazi (rhymes with mice), PB and III%er paramilitary and the right wing meal team 6 deplorables who are itching to use one of the 20 million AR’s that are out there right now. If you don’t want one, don’t buy one. Hope this helps
Got my hair cut for the first time in probably a year because I have an interview tomorrow for a job I really want to get (and think I have a pretty good shot at).
It looks decent, but has revealed a good deal more grey than I'm accustomed to seeing.
This morning Katy noticed a rash all around my neck. I can only attribute it to the new (to me) shirt I wore yesterday. It's like my body has revolted against wearing a shirt and tie ever again.
We just filled out the card for my niece's wedding. We took some time to figure out the perfect wording, select the right ink and nib, practice my handwriting so that it was on point, and after all that, I finally came to the realisation that I'm not certain as to whether or not she's old enough to have been taught cursive.
TIL that Instacart now charges a "membership" to get higher priority on assignment of batches. This does not guarantee you anything, it just allows them to further exploit a workforce they're already working to the bone.
Do they not realize that many (if not most) of the people who are working this job are doing it because they don't really have any other options? And they expect them to pay for the privilege now?
Just when I thought they couldn't possibly get any more predatory, they pull this shit.
Also, I get the whole "don't bite the hand that feeds you" thing. I might take that more seriously if it was actually feeding me. Mostly it just slaps me in the face.
@Karsten Johansson I'd say so. When I say Real World, I mean somewhere where one can earn a living with it. Sadly, I know next to nothing about quantum computing though.
Yep, quite a few places, though they generally don’t talk about it much. Quantum computing, chip design, logistics, and drug discovery are a few that come to mind.
If I were to make a broad generalization, they tend to be fields where deep subject and algorithmic expertise is more valuable than relatively more-easily-replaced developers.
Which is, of course, not to say that e.g. Python/JavaScript/etc developers don’t also need subject matter expertise, but the necessary understanding is generally shallower and less entangled with the algorithmic complexity.
(Again, painting with a very broad brush here.)
There’s also an axis of software lifecycle, too. If you’re constantly changing requirements it’s less valuable to remember last year’s nuances. Different economics than if you need to ship something stable for years.
@curtosis I have to say, the kind of job that would be looking for Lisp developers sounds like the kind of environment I might actually want to work in. I've been pretty depressed about the state of the modern tech industry.
The last dev job I had kinda burnt me out because every month or so, I was on to an entirely different project and never had a chance to develop that deep level of domain knowledge on anything. It was very frustrating.
We gather example companies that we find here: github.com/azzamsa/awesome-lis… Mind you it's nothing official. There are job offers sometimes on reddit, but also on the two LinkedIn groups, sometimes on Twitter alone, and sometimes you get a direct message (happened).
There are many in the quantum space, such as HLR labs. reddit's /u/stylewarning works for it. They released the impressive Coalton and even contribute to SBCL.
HLR, Ravenpack and Keepit are probably still hiring.
Personally, as a solo developer, I use CL more and more in my stack, ditching Python the more I can. I wrote about it: lisp-journey.gitlab.io/blog/ru…
Instead of extending a Python software I write independent modules in CL. It works well for standalone scripts too (read a DB, process data, send everything to a FTP, to a web service, by email…) It's such a joy.
Recently, the awesome-lisp-companies list was posted on HN, more people got to know it (look, this list is fan-cooked and we add companies when we learn about one, often by chance, don’t assume it’s anything “official” or exhaustive), and Alex Nygren…
I used Common-Lisp on a few professional production projects; a data transformation system for moving data between two companys' different systems. An event processing engine that applies weird complex rules to GPS tracking locations. A web micro-service or two to support some mobile apps. All of those services, except maybe the first, are still running in production. Plus, of course, a few personal projects here and there.
For all the fancy climbers and beds and such that we've gotten for the cat, his two favourite places to hang out are a random paper bag and our boot tray.
Got a rejection letter form one of the jobs I'd applied for. I have to say, I'm not terribly broken up about this one. I applied because I'm trying not to be overly picky, but I don't see myself as having been happy there long-term.
Anxiety's been bad again lately. I am moderately worried about losing the apartment. Taking steps to try to keep that from happening, but sometimes just trying to engage with the problem brings on a panic attack.
I have medication to help with that now, but it makes it hard to think clearly. I will survive this one way or another, but my life is going to have to change. I don't handle change well.
Yeah I think the most important thing that people don't tend to get about anxiety/panic is how crippling it can be and how it makes dealing with some everyday things all but impossible at times.
And of course not dealing with those everyday things makes everything worse and things start to spiral.
Do you have someone who can help you? Someone you trust to *get it* and, at least, just be with you through this stuff?
@uoou Yeah, I actually agreed to go off ADHD meds because while functioning without them is far more difficult, dealing with this is essentially impossible.
This probably won't help me in my current job search, but is it worth learning COBOL? I've heard that there are still a bunch of critical systems out there that use it, and that it's hard to find COBOL devs these days.
Is this still the case? The only downside I can see is that I'd have to program in COBOL.
I did Cobol in my studies. It's quirky but a fairly straightforward language to learn. It's not sexy but solid, and at least you won't be dealing with all the boilerplate Java or csharp junk.
Cobol is only half the deal though. In all likelihood you'll be working in a mainframe environment so may come into contact with Rexx JCL, CICS, and all the other good stuff as well. 😄
@TinCoyote Yeah, I've got a bunch of other languages under my belt. It's just that the job market is flooded with other people who also know those languages. I do have some strength in a relatively niche language (Haskell); it's just that there doesn't seem to be a ton of demand for it (though there is some).
A reading knowledge of COBOL would be useful for understanding of parts needing replacement, especially where requirements and test cases are missing, while putting the most effort into expertise in potential target languages.
Writing COBOL requires fast typing skills. It's very verbose.
"Subtract Expenses from Gross-Revenue giving Profit"
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Having worked adjacent to 4 different mainframes at this point in my career along with their "modernization" efforts. Reading COBOL, not terrible. Writing it, eh, probably not so bad but I've never done, only had to read and comprehend what it does. And there are non-MFs that provide implementation of COBOL so you can learn on your own time.
The devil is going to be understanding IBM systems "junk": CICS, DASD, DCLGEN, TSO, RACF etc
@billinkc What he said. Mainframe basics are more important than COBOL, I'd say.
I work for a company that's doing "Mainframe Modernization" and as a result we have to understand the old crappy non-modern stuff in order to implement new stuff! (Currently my group isn't reimplementing anything based in Cobol. We do Db2 monitoring stuff.)
(We have AI hype on the front page but really we're just programming. I guess some departments might be doing AI, but I think we're just scared we'll miss the bandwagon. So don't ignore us just for that.)
Rocket Software provides IT modernization and IT automation solutions that help businesses solve their most complex IT challenges, across infrastructure, data, and applications.
@nosrednayduj OMG super small world. One of the projects I was on dealt with model 204/m204. We ended up building a real time synchronization between m204 and SQL Server via messaging. It was going to be a very cool way to modernize the client's data storage while they incrementally switched the front ends.
If you have no mainframe experience, the first thing I would do is get some mainframe experience or study the mainframe environment. Include JES2. If you only have one or two other programming languages that you have mastered, then I would go for something else that is in current development use. If it's your fourth or fifth language, get COBOL. It's quicker and easier to pick up a language after you have a few under your belt and the concepts are clear in your mind. Oh, and a mainframe environment is not the only place it comes in handy. I did a little work for a steel company that had Critical applications in micro focus object-oriented COBOL, and they had a huge IT department, but I was the only one local with current cobol experience. You never know when that knowledge might become critical.
Also, it was an expectation that I submit to random drug testing. No, I do not want to lose my job because they found amphetamines in my system (legitimately prescribed for ADHD). I already have to jump through enough hoops to get them in the first place.
Went to pick up a prescription and the guy ahead of me in line was chewing the pharmacist out about the automated system, which admittedly sucks but is certainly a decision made by corporate, not her.
He repeatedly threatened to take his business elsewhere. Were I in her position, the response I'd have wanted to give was "please do".
Back in the 1990s I worked at a very large government facility on an RFP for getting an ISP. The winning bidder had in the footer of every page "Bid for Interenet Service Provider." Nobody but me noticed.
Of course, the Interenet was so new in the 1990s that maybe they thought that's how it's spelled...
Omar Antolín
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • • •Oriel Jutty
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • • •This is why C89 wisely limits external symbols to 6 significant characters.
/s
Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to Oriel Jutty • •@Oriel Jutty
*twitch*
Kazinator
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • • •C's type system would also have caught it, and it isn't worth a hill of beans.
By caught it what do we mean? This is not a case of some undetected error escaping your attention due to dynamic typing. You know you got a nil which is unexpected and wrong. It's in a test case which catches it.
The only thing a type system would change is that you would instead waste a half hour not understanding how your obviously correct function call can possibly have the wrong return type.
Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to Kazinator • •nilis about the least useful failure state there is.