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Running a Bakery on Emacs and PostgreSQL

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151–160 of 194 posts

Re: Running a Bakery on Emacs and PostgreSQL

#151

This reminds me of the time I used Python to fill out my Wife's 4th grade report cards. She kept all the records in google sheets, so when it came time to do report cars, she already knew what all the grades should be. But the school only provided a terrible app where you literally had to make three clicks with a mouse to enter each grade. Each kid had about 20 grades to enter, and there were 30 kids. That was a lot…

Rewrite the output logic with PyAutoGUI doing the keyboard shortcuts and grade typing? https://pyautogui.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

If she were still teaching I’d have put in more effort, but alas she retired when my daughter was born.

Re: Running a Bakery on Emacs and PostgreSQL

#152
post #148

This is basically why I end up going back to Emacs. It's waaaaay too easy to start writing functions and the built-in help system (with docstrings almost everywhere for every function and variable) is invaluable. Though I'm beginning to wonder if JavaScript-based extensions in VS Code can match the power of Emacs code. Are there plugins that connect to Postgres? or do what Org-mode does?

I know it's an oft-repeated gripe here, but Javascript has so many bizarre warts that I'd never trust it to configure my personal computing environment. https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat

With TypeScript it's basically like Emacs-Lisp in terms of the volume of warts, if not in the same space of bizarreness.

Re: Running a Bakery on Emacs and PostgreSQL

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't remember where I read the story, Steve Yegge perhaps. But they were talking about how where they worked secretaries actually used Emacs apps developed by the IT department and, over time, the secretaries started to extend the apps with Elisp.

Tech people have a problem with assuming that everyone is an idiot, mostly because it’s easier to do half-assed work aimed at a moron. Legacy text based solutions that survived are usually much better designed by people who actually spoke to the users.

The thing that has irritated me often is not that people are idiots but they often lack of self belief that they could learn to do something. The key here is the secretaries didn’t realise they were learning to code, but if you told them to learn to code they would most likely make excuses.

Re: Running a Bakery on Emacs and PostgreSQL

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point -- Access is a great middle ground between kludging something together in a spreadsheet and writing an entire app from scratch.

I'm sure this exists, but it's probably about time we had a GUI you can put in front of a Postgres/MySQL server in a similar way to Access forms, as a kind of hybrid between niche app and off the shelf.

LibreOffice Base?

Re: Running a Bakery on Emacs and PostgreSQL

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech people have a problem with assuming that everyone is an idiot, mostly because it’s easier to do half-assed work aimed at a moron. Legacy text based solutions that survived are usually much better designed by people who actually spoke to the users.

The thing that has irritated me often is not that people are idiots but they often lack of self belief that they could learn to do something. The key here is the secretaries didn’t realise they were learning to code, but if you told them to learn to code they would most likely make excuses.

Of course.

You pay your admin $18/hr and pay a programmer $50. People tend to assume their place.

Re: Running a Bakery on Emacs and PostgreSQL

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > The odds of the next baker you higher knowing SQL and emacs? Pretty low... the odds they know Excel? Probably higher. > Odds that you can teach them the basics of SQL and Emacs? Pretty high. Have you ever tried to teach a regular person how to use Excel? The above reads like satire if I'm honest. Even teaching someone how to use Emacs alone would be seriously pushing it.

I do teach non-tech people computer stuff from time to time in professional capacity, including in the past the Microsoft Office suite, as well as Photoshop, Corel and Inkscape. So I do have a concept of how difficult that is. That said, in context of work, it's even simpler. A few tasks, a program. You teach people by example. Type this here, type this there, do this, do that, you're done. Nothing hard. Think of it…

[deleted]

Re: Running a Bakery on Emacs and PostgreSQL

#157
post #79

I'm trying to help my girlfriend manage the inventory for her cactus business. She raises cacti from seed, cuttings, but mostly from wholesale suppliers. She has a square account and store. I’m trying to set up inventory tracking for her. There are couple of things that make her business different than most inventory holding businesses. 1. Generally her inventory increases in value over time because it grows. Over ti…

Hi! I'm David, the founder of Retool (https://tryretool.com). We describes ourselves as "a fast way of building custom internal tools". (That's what's on our landing page, in fact!)

We're inspired heavily by Excel and visual programming. The idea is that business apps — even custom ones — all have the same building blocks for their front-ends: tables, buttons, dropdowns, textinputs, etc. And so we give you all of these building blocks, as components that you can use.

And most custom business apps interface with SQL databases or APIs, so we have native integrations with those. If you want to render a list of users in your app, for example, you could write the SQL query (`select * from users`), and save it as `users_query`. Then, you can drag on a `Table`, and have its `data` property set to `{{users_query.data}}`. Then you're done!

This probably all sounds a bit abstract... so here's a 3 minute demo video, if you're curious: https://vimeo.com/303811211

Let me know if you'd be interested in trying it? I'm at david@tryretool.com if you have any questions / feedback! :)

Re: Running a Bakery on Emacs and PostgreSQL

#158
post #148

This is basically why I end up going back to Emacs. It's waaaaay too easy to start writing functions and the built-in help system (with docstrings almost everywhere for every function and variable) is invaluable. Though I'm beginning to wonder if JavaScript-based extensions in VS Code can match the power of Emacs code. Are there plugins that connect to Postgres? or do what Org-mode does?

There is a watered down version of org-mode for VSCode. I still prefer the Emacs variety, though. Especially once you tweak out org-capture and custom templates....

Re: Running a Bakery on Emacs and PostgreSQL

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A mobile interface for Emacs will be killer. I heard about Orgazly and tried using it but it's a very slow interface. A mobile first design even with limited features will go a long way. Mobileorg was that app for a while but it's development stopped and it's no longer usable.

Agreed. Don't forget about tablets too; I'd happily pay for someone to make Emacs usable with touch gestures and optimized for touch use (e.g. with a clickable, context-aware button row).

I'm waiting for Emacs to run natively on ChromeOS (or Android) so I can get a Chromebook. (I'm not willing to install Cruton or any of the native Linux hacks on a chromebook).

Re: Running a Bakery on Emacs and PostgreSQL

#160
post #35
post #32

Frustratingly thin on details about the actual bakery (perhaps not surprising since it's a blog series). All I could figure out is this Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/theloafery/ . It seems he mainly sells at a market.

That's funny, I was wanting more details on the bakery as well. I'm wondering how much of a pay difference he's experiencing going from software developer to bakery owner.

I had a friend who owned a really popular food truck in the LA area. After a couple years he went back to IT work because he could make more with more reasonable hours.
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