Comments for The Changelog

Comment on First steps with cfengine by Elizabeth King

Elizabeth King — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 17:30:25 +0000

there are lots of social issues these days mostly due to our culture and economic situation;:-

Comment on Once, We Were Makers by Links from the week of 19. July 2010 to 26. July 2010 « Hacker's Ramblings: Blag by Rix

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 22:01:46 +0000

[...] Once, We Were Makers — Well put, John… I fear my generation will be even worse Keep the tinkerers alive (Boomtime, the 56th of Confusion in the YOLD 3176) [...]

Comment on Introducing the Command Line at 3 years by Mark Dominus

Mark Dominus — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 21:43:27 +0000

At about the same age my kid was bashing on the keyboard, but then she would ask me “how many ’s’s are there”? I got tired of counting pretty quickly, so instead of bashing at cat I had her bash at perl -nle ‘print tr/sS//’ . That was popular for a long time.

Comment on Once, We Were Makers by John

John — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 15:50:05 +0000

I was given the same 160 in 1 set for a birthday when I was about 11 (back when RadioShack/Tandy were still in the UK). Incidentally, I too had started programming on my Dad’s TRS-80 a few years earlier.

I’m not sure that RadioShack’s decline is entirely due to society’s change. All specialised shops have been under pressure from internet mail order. Shop retail has become increasingly about providing customer experience rather than stock, since they can’t possibly compete with the net on range or price.

Comment on Why I Buy $100 Fans (Review: Vornado) by Borak

Borak — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 00:20:23 +0000

I just bought the one with only three positions. The lowest is still aimed upward. It’s supposed to blow 100 feet, which told me nothing. I wish all fans were rated for blowing power so I’d have a frame of reference. If it were super-powerful, I could see not wanting it directly on you, so just three upward positions would be fine, but it’s not as powerful as I hoped. At the end of a 30 foot room you may want it directly on you and you’d have to put something under the base to tilt it. I think it’s more powerful than my larger high velocity fan and the blades are cleanable, unlike some of the other powerful fans, and it’s UL listed (I think) and made for the home, so…I guess I’m not to dissatisfied.

Comment on So long, Vim. I’m returning to Emacs by Anonymous Coward

Anonymous Coward — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 08:45:02 +0000

As you get used to working in Vim normal mode, you’re not supposed to use either arrow keys or hjkl most of the time. You instead navigate a word at the time with w/b or W/B, a sentence at the time with ( and ), a paragraph at the time with { and }, or until next occurence of character ‘x’ with fx / Fx. See `:help cursor-motions’ for more info.

Comment on So long, Vim. I’m returning to Emacs by Anonymous Coward

Anonymous Coward — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 08:34:31 +0000

That’s because python syntax is _defined_ by indentation, so the indentation can obviously not be defined by the syntax. We’ve got a classic chicken-and-egg problem.

Consider this example:
if a == b:
print “some text”
print “some more text”

How is Vim supposed to know whether the second print statement should belong to the if block or not?

If you try autoindenting e.g. a file in C, XML or JavaScript however, Vim would correctly adjust the indentation to the syntax.

Comment on Jacob has a new computer — and a favorite shell by Andrew Ruthven

Andrew Ruthven — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 01:03:34 +0000

Hey John,

Interesting read. It seems that an old defunct Apple PowerBook 100 is no longer acceptable with my 3.5 daughter. She has just declared that she wants a working computer. And we’ve been told that having a login on my workstation isn’t acceptable.

Good to hear that Jacob has been able to handle the command line okay. I’ll try Brooke out on it, currently her favourite game is making ice in Frozen Bubble.

Cheers!

Comment on Once, We Were Makers by Mate

Mate — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:32:20 +0000

As for the discussion on getting too far from the origins, I think it is a valid claim, and I think it makes things less interesting.

Firstly, the difficult challenges are usually those generated by the environment around us (i.e. Mother Nature) and not those generated by humans — these latter I think are by definition bounded in complexity by the ingenuity of the human mind.

Secondly (and more importantly), it is difficult to do “hands-on” problem solving with computers. Humans, and especially children, are very good at handicrafts, but less good at more abstract things. I can, for example, understand things much easier once I can _physically_ grab them, or even just draw them. Show someone a graph, explain what connectivity means, and he/she will immediately understand it. Show the same person a proof that infinite number of primes exist. The latter I think is a trivial proof, but most will give up at the definition of a “prime”.

(PS: I was in the US in 1988, so it makes sense I have that 160-in-1 set ;) )

Comment on Once, We Were Makers by John Goerzen

John Goerzen — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 20:17:03 +0000

Is RadioShack changing because society has changed or are they just doing it of their own volition? I agree that (with the exceptions I mentioned) I am no fan of RadioShack any more. But has RS changed because there aren’t enough people that enjoyed what it was any longer? I think the answer to that is yes.