miniblog.

Today I learnt that the excellent markdown-mode.el also contains a gfm-mode for editing GitHub flavoured markdown files. A hidden gem!

Pandas is wonderful. It's really easy to grab some data, manipulate it, then graph it. It even renders better than lists in ipython.

I'm again impressed with the gov.uk websites. I registered to vote today and the website was clear, easy and worked well.

I've just reached the point where my self-hosting metawiki can edit itself. Bootstrapping is hard.

Learnt today that fio is far more effective (and Linus approved!) for measuring disk performance than hdparm or dd:

Exploring a Postgres database with the GTInspector https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtfgK7Wcx5o -- with a sufficiently powerful IDE, a query GUI and API blur.

I'm rarely interested in web framework perf. Ecosystem, docs, test-friendliness and resultant productivity are what I want to maximise.

https://github.com/m0smith/malabar-mode is a very respectable major mode for Java. Historically Emacs' Java support was weak (lack of interest apparently).

I find 'homoiconic' unsatisfying. In a lisp, syntax is represented as a generic data type, but it can also mean 'has a built-in AST type'.

Cute Smalltalk pastebin: http://t.co/ws9ytfc3LS . I think there's still room to innovate with lang-specific pastebins, but spam is tedious.

Humane Assessment again exploring elegant and powerful IDE design (for Pharo Smalltalk): http://t.co/IhrdXqMFFM

Infix operators in elisp!

Gosling's Emacs was scripted in MLisp, which was a remarkably quirky language: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8727085

I am really impressed with edebug. It's one of the nicest debuggers I've ever played with, and I feel I've only scratched the surface.

Fascinating to see that Elm has removed the Either type with the goal of making code explicit: http://t.co/XrXyiWo65J