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Emacs Is Not Enough

project-mage.org

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Re: Emacs Is Not Enough

#151

Post by worik »

the__alchemist wrote: post #148
worik wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is it an ignorant question? The nicer ones let you use JTAG etc connections, and debug to console using ITM or RTT. (STM, nRF etc) Others allow debugging via serial. Because all those systems, even the very nicest, all over the palnet, very really have "JTAG etc connections," Those are things you attached to the system. You attach them in a complex error prone process, at the end of it you have a different syst…

You connect the debug probe to your MCU (pogo pins or w/e is convenient for the form factor), connect it to a PC over USB, and print to a terminal window in Windows, Linux etc. Or a serial-USB bridge if it doesn't support debug probes. If the MCU is so basic it doesn't support UART, bit-bang it with GPIO. Too easy!

> Print debugging is a technique that will never go out of style. It works on any system,

So if you connect up a bunch of wires and everything goes well "too easy" you can get output from some, not all, systems.

What you describe is no what the comment about "print debugging" means, to me.

Re: Emacs Is Not Enough

#152

Post by defrost »

worik wrote: post #150
jjav wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No it does not. It requires a console, and not all systems have a console. It does not. You just send the log output somewhere (often a different system). If you have a deployment with no logging infrastructure (either local for smaller setups or distributed for large scale), you have a major problem beyond just debugging visibility.

> You just send the log output somewhere How?

Via network socket, serial port, parallel port, however the system in question communicates with the world.

If it's an actual standalone deaf, dumb, and blind black box with zero world interaction then you should, at least, have a hardware probe and step debugging capabilities and you can always flash a sign of some kind on some bus or another.

Re: Emacs Is Not Enough

#153

Post by allarm »

some-mthfka wrote: post #136
allarm wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turned out the author didn’t know that csv-mode exists.

Yep. I will have to add it to the article (and why it's insufficient as well).

Just make sure that you’ve checked the documentation beforehand, so that you don’t miss anything obvious again.

Re: Emacs Is Not Enough

#154

Post by vindarel »

lycopodiopsida wrote: post #103
some-mthfka wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For a text editor mediocricity is fine. No, not for the text editor, but may be for some users. If a tree falls, does it make a sound? After all, maybe you are just not a power user and don't have the same frame of reference that power users have. > It has to be shown that structural editing makes an editor simpler, faster and in suited for a broader range of tasks. Until then, text is the king. Text might be the k…

> After all, maybe you are just not a power user and don't have the same frame of reference that power users have. Maybe. Or maybe your ideal of an editor has nothing to do with what everyone else wants from it, including power users. > Text might be the king until then, yes, but so is C++ and the children running with AKs in Africa. Doesn't mean it's right or acceptable. I will ignore the "but the children" polemics…

> I cannot remember ever using or having something installed in CL

I get you, of course. There are not a lot of user-facing, open-source software. When there is, they tend to be big and not CLI utilities like ripgrep, and not well advertised. A few ideas: pgloader (from python to CL), pgchart, OpenMusic, Opus Modus, the Scorecloud app, CEPL to play with graphics, regex-coach for windows, the Lem editor, Maxima, Axiom, Sucle (Minecraft clone), PTC's Creo Elements multi-million lines 3D CAD software with a free version, StumpWM…

but also you are ignoring all the big historical projects (some still in activity like Maxima).

Try https://ballish.margaine.com/ for a fast code search.

Re: Emacs Is Not Enough

#155

Post by agumonkey »

ryukafalz wrote: post #3
Gollapalli wrote: post #2

I very much like this article. I especially like the comparison to TempleOS. I think Terry Davis blew computing wide open. That is what a personal computer can do, when it’s treated as an instrument instead of an appliance, and the user treated like the player of said instrument, instead of a child in a china shop. Imagine if you could plug your guitar into a computer, have that audio file, be a widget in a buffer, a…

Every time I see something like this, I'm also reminded of this demo of the Xerox Alto from a few years back. I'll link to the start of the most relevant piece: https://youtu.be/AnrlSqtpOkw?t=549 I'm always struck by the useful directions that desktop computers were going in the 70s, and how computing could be so much better than it is right now. But we've veered so off-course from all of this, away from composabilit…

I wonder if the sidefx houdini guys knew about smalltalk and if kay and his team ever saw houdini. The universal connecting data is very similar (and one of the most pleasurable thing ever)

Re: Emacs Is Not Enough

#158

Post by TeMPOraL »

worik wrote: post #133
Ferret7446 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any system that is capable of emitting any data, can emit bytes from print debugging. Could be log file, socket, or even pulses along a GPIO pin. If the system can't emit any data, well, you're kind of stuck anyway.

Pulses on a GPIO pin are not print statements. A huge proportion of computing devices have no method of producing any out put, other than to some form of actuator, at all. "print statements" are useless in this class of device. Stretching the definition of "print statement" to recording pulses from a pin is, well, a stretch! Poor young programmers. If the only tool you have is a hemmer, every problem is a thumb.

> A huge proportion of computing devices have no method of producing any out put, other than to some form of actuator, at all.

Actuators work too. It's not unheard of in robotics to debug by adding statements that make some actuator do specific movements that communicate the information you want to surface.

Anything you can use to output nonzero amount of bits to the environment can work for print debugging.

Re: Emacs Is Not Enough

#159

Post by jll29 »

ryukafalz wrote: post #3
Gollapalli wrote: post #2

I very much like this article. I especially like the comparison to TempleOS. I think Terry Davis blew computing wide open. That is what a personal computer can do, when it’s treated as an instrument instead of an appliance, and the user treated like the player of said instrument, instead of a child in a china shop. Imagine if you could plug your guitar into a computer, have that audio file, be a widget in a buffer, a…

Every time I see something like this, I'm also reminded of this demo of the Xerox Alto from a few years back. I'll link to the start of the most relevant piece: https://youtu.be/AnrlSqtpOkw?t=549 I'm always struck by the useful directions that desktop computers were going in the 70s, and how computing could be so much better than it is right now. But we've veered so off-course from all of this, away from composabilit…

Very true. From one vantage point, things look like this:

1970s: The Visionaries - showing us how the future (of desktop computing) can look like.

2023: pre-1970s state stuff has become pervasive, runs faster and is cheaper, but not nearly at the level of sophistication that the 1970s had. (State of the art is still free clones of Unix, a 1960s OS.)

So where is the course correction? And where are the 2023 ideas that as look far into the future from today as the J.C.R. Lickliders, D. Engelbarts, T. Nelson and A. Kays of the day?

(Thankfully, in some areas, things look better - e.g. mobile phones, robotics, machine learning applications etc., so the point here is only valid about destop HCI progress.)

Re: Emacs Is Not Enough

#160

Post by TeMPOraL »

narag wrote: post #140
dsm9000 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve used emacs to open and edit binaries back in the old days - basically one long line. We often needed to install proprietary software in non standard locations so changing the embedded strings within binaries worked great and better than using vi (pre vim era). Always best if the new path had a length less than that of the existing one. In any event I guess the whining about editors will never stop but meanwhile…

Editor ergonomics seem to be very personal, like furniture so I’m glad we have so many options. A long time ago I read some piece by Groucho, about how it's impossible to find a beef (or ham, or turkey, not sure which it was) sandwich any more. He goes to some sandwich shop and ask for a beef sandwich and they offer him a beef + hard boiled eggs + lettuce sandwich with mayo, cherry tomatos and oregano, or a beef + ch…

> A long time ago I read some piece by Groucho, about how it's impossible to find a beef (or ham, or turkey, not sure which it was) sandwich any more. (...) But he can't just buy a simple roastbeef sandwich, maybe with a pinch of mustard.

I need to find that piece, because it resonates. For me, it's hot dogs. I can't find plain hotdogs anywhere anymore. All I want is a bun, a sausage, and some ketchup and mustard on top. But no, everyone has to add at least cucumbers and fried onions, and if you're not careful, you'll end up with bread full of a large assortment of veggies, with barely a sausage in sight.

I imagine the reason for this is economics: this green stuff is probably dirt cheap relative to the sausage, but lets the vendor triple the price of a hot dog without making you feel they're price gouging you.

For the past decade in my area, IKEA was the last bastion of pure, unadulterated hot dogs. But even they recently took that off the menu - the basic hot dog now comes loaded with useless greenery.

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