[HN Gopher] [?] Xah Code
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[?] Xah Code
Author : tsujp
Score : 127 points
Date : 2022-04-10 12:10 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (xahlee.info)
(TXT) w3m dump (xahlee.info)
| qualudeheart wrote:
| Xah deserves more attention and help. Is he still unemployed?
|
| Someone should help him find a job if possible.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| People like him need basic income, the rent paid and a social
| worker. Nothing else works.
| stevespang wrote:
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| Xah has contributed more to my workday well being than almost any
| other blogger. Love his tutorials.
| [deleted]
| Tomte wrote:
| Oh, is he better now?
|
| (I don't see the plea for help on his home page)
|
| If so, good to hear!
| prionassembly wrote:
| By all appearances Xah is such an extreme personality. It's this
| (and websites like this) which made the internet awesome.
| carapace wrote:
| I'm glad Xah Lee is still around, and seems to be doing well.
|
| (Protip: his Unicode search pages are very useful, I use them all
| the time: http://xahlee.info/comp/unicode_index.html)
| marvel_boy wrote:
| I did not know about how terribly is that: Famous Programers with
| Repetitive Strain Injury
| http://xahlee.info/emacs/emacs/emacs_hand_pain_celebrity.htm...
|
| Seems that Emacs is no good in excess!
| nickcw wrote:
| I'm an Emacs user and I've struggled with RSI throughout my
| career. I don't know whether I blame Emacs particularly, but
| the ctrl-letter chords aren't kind on the wrists.
|
| For me, switching the mouse to my left hand and using split
| keyboards (I like the Microsoft natural keyboard) has helped a
| lot.
|
| It's taken about as many years as it took to get bad to get
| better again. If my wrists start hurting I will take a break
| and I might use ice on them in the evenings if it gets bad.
|
| If your wrists start hurting get professional help before it
| gets really bad. I had to try a lot of things before I found
| improvements and the improvements are really slow.
| Physiotherapy can help improve things in the short term.
|
| Would I still have RSI if I was a vi user? Probably. I think it
| is more a personality thing, wanting to finish the job so
| ignoring your body telling you that you should take a break.
| davidfactorial wrote:
| The best thing I ever did for my hands was putting ctrl to the
| left of the spacebar where alt usually is. I hit it with my
| left thumb. I never have to contort my wrists. And it works
| across all programs, not just vim/emacs. Capslock is still
| using the pinky.
|
| I also switched to Dvorak and put backspace on Capslock, which
| I think also helped but might be diminishing returns. But I
| still really like ctrl on alt for my single best ergonomics
| tweak.
| NeutralForest wrote:
| The risk is overstated, many people have used without any issue
| and there is no control group as well, those programmers might
| have issues either way, Emacs or not.
| froh wrote:
| Also the problem affects the whole the meta group of coders,
| beyond emacs. Even in the article one of the poor RSI victims
| explicitly is an avid vi user and emacs hater (John
| Ousterhout of TCL fame).
|
| Phew.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > there is no control group as well
|
| VIM users?
| NeutralForest wrote:
| Maybe, now there needs a case for significant differences
| in pain levels among Emacs vs Vim users.
| deltille wrote:
| VIM started flirting with giving me RSI issues (mostly :
| and esc keys; yes, even on capslock. I have small hands)
| after some years. It's a comparison certainly but not a
| control.
| sva_ wrote:
| > esc key
|
| You may use Ctrl-[ instead. What do you mean about
| capslock? Mapping capslock to esc?
| User23 wrote:
| With a modern firmware or maybe software you can map
| capslock to be escape when tapped and control when held.
| I hear this is nice for vi, and it's also nice for emacs
| since escape can serve as meta.
|
| I'm going to try that with the key left of space, since
| it feels completely obvious that the thumb is the natural
| best finger for modifier keys.
| mijoharas wrote:
| I've been using this for years and can say it's very
| nice.
|
| Caps2esc under Wayland and I think I used to use xcape
| under x11 though it's been a while. (caps2esc has a
| configurable framework so you can use that for a
| different key and it should work nicely for you)
| JackMorgan wrote:
| I used to have bad RSI using emacs, so I enabled evil (vim)
| mode, got a split keyboard, started lifting weights, and found
| a job where I could pair program all the time. Sounds extreme,
| but it eventually healed.
|
| I only have issues now when writing books, since I often set
| myself a daily word target and that extra load seems to just
| add to overall strain.
| B1FF_PSUVM wrote:
| After some ten years of Emacs use, I spent a few hours crafting
| less insane ways of invoking common functions, to save my
| wrists.
|
| Later I just stopped typing so much so fast, and even -
| apostasy - gave up using Emacs altogether.
|
| And so it goes.
| 323 wrote:
| His political views are, how to say it politely, interesting.
| deltille wrote:
| Xah writes some of the most readable guides and doc I've found
| anywhere. Specifically, readable in the sense that meaning is
| efficiently conveyed. In technical contexts it's clear nothing
| else matters to him. He also isn't reluctant to speak his mind
| about ... well, just about anything, for better or worse. Usually
| better, I think, even when it's wordvomit, seeing someone else
| willing to talk about or criticize something reinforces it
| however subtly as 'something some people do' and something you
| may in turn be more likely to do yourself. Which is a net good.
|
| I refer to him regularly, especially when translating ideas to
| people who aren't in the computer jargon 'orbit'.
|
| The extremes his opinions (and overall style) sit at also force
| or at least nudge others to think about and elucidate their own
| positions, if only to themselves. I think it's intentional, and
| eat it up. I've noticed a lot of people can't stand him for the
| exact same reasons which suggests it's working.
| kache_ wrote:
| This guy is unhinged in like the best of ways. First found out
| about him on /g/
| isoprophlex wrote:
| Not related to this, but since we're talking trolls... I noticed
| that n-gate.com hasn't been updated in more than half a year.
|
| I always enjoyed reading their over the top critiques of HN
| posts... anyone know if they're okay and maybe just burnt out --
| or that something else is going on?
| eckza wrote:
| Perhaps now that you've violated the Prime Directive, he'll re-
| appear.
| executesorder66 wrote:
| Apparently they are not dead.[0] They posted this a bit after
| their last update on their website. But yeah, probably got
| tired of doing an update every week.
|
| [0]https://twitter.com/webshitweekly/status/1450563491069247489
| isoprophlex wrote:
| Great! And understandable... it's a miracle the site kept
| going as long as it did.
| jandrese wrote:
| I think he just got bored with saying the same things over and
| over again. The point was made, and so on.
| kebman wrote:
| POV-Ray <3 Been a while since I used that. I think it's a shame
| that they stopped developing it. They say things are better, but
| are they really? The scripting language for it is really cool
| IMHO.
| dTal wrote:
| POV-Ray has a special place in my heart. For the vast majority
| of artistic tasks, Blender is a hugely superior environment
| that will produce better images, faster. And you can generate
| meshes to import into Blender with OpenSCAD if you really like
| CSG. It doesn't have the precision of raytracing the
| mathematical specification directly, but you don't really need
| that ever.
|
| However, for certain very narrow categories of things, it's
| probably still the lowest-impedance tool for the job. Want to
| make a website that shows a static image of the current cloud
| cover + illumination of the Earth, updated every minute? Want
| to make some geometrical visualizations for a math textbook?
| Want to experiment with extremely weird and exotic camera
| projections? POV-Ray!
| kebman wrote:
| I really like the scattering media, and the mathematical
| figures you can do with it, such as 3D Julia fractals and
| noise patters to model really rough "stony" surfaces that
| aren't just bump maps. On top of that I don't think I've
| found a better way to generate various patterns and textures,
| even for simple 2D work. It's just such a versatile set of
| tools you almost wouldn't believe it's free! And the fact
| that it's entirely scripted (unless wysiwyg megapov etc) just
| makes it better IMHO. It's a scripting-first modelling
| language, and I really, really like that. With that comes
| things such as inverse kinematics and gravity (for
| animations) without having to learn specialized GUIs or buy
| expensive software.
| seanw444 wrote:
| On http://xahlee.info/UnixResource_dir/freebooks.html a little
| over halfway down the page, it says:
|
| > OpenBSD is famous for its extra concern on "security". (the
| entire "security" problems in today's computing industry is a
| egregious insult to how things should be. Security problems are
| in fact created and fermented by the unix community. If unix did
| not exist, the computing world would harbor a lot less of
| hackers.)
|
| That's a bold claim. That can't be factually true. Can it?
| moonchild wrote:
| Unix propagates memory-unsafe languages (c), as well as
| inefficient and inexpressive IPC mechanisms (pipes or shmem)
| which lead to monolithic programs where there is only one key
| to the whole kingdom.
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| Xah Lee always has really cool stuff on their blog. One of those
| rare Internet gold mines.
| math-dev wrote:
| Xah Lee's tips on elisp were super useful to me. A relic of the
| usenet era (an infamous troll on comp.lang.lisp), but someone who
| has added a lot of value to a lot of lives
|
| Long love ergomacs!
| kleiba wrote:
| http://xahlee.info/emacs/emacs/_p/KickbanXahLeeFromEmacsChan...
| xoa wrote:
| He was banned from HN long ago too. Random long-ass thread he
| started on the Python un back in 2009 about this stuff I had
| saved an archive of for some reason:
|
| https://www.mail-archive.com/python-
| list@python.org/msg23603...
|
| He even replies for once further down in typical style
| complete with a classic Also, thanks to many
| supporters over the past years. Truly Your Superior,
| Xah
|
| Like, yeah he is likely somewhere on the spectrum and he has
| some useful insights and material. But he's also kind of a
| raging asshole with a chip on his shoulder the size of
| mountain who would pop into technical groups and dump
| monologues out of nowhere then vanish, or at most deign to
| maybe add a bit more odd responses loaded with condescension
| and victimhood. I'm not sorry there are some colorful people
| like that around for a variety of reasons. That kind of
| personality can do neat stuff sometimes, and that he can have
| his own long running site and put up all his thoughts and
| opinions and then have entire new generations see and
| reconsider them down the road regardless of any bans from
| anywhere else is itself a testament to the promise of the
| internet and speech. And something I'm happy to point to by
| people who go ballistic about moderation on social media or
| the like. You don't have to be trapped by that.
|
| At the same time I completely understand all the bans because
| holy crap. That kind of rant is enjoyed in strict moderation.
| Though that so many of us would respond seriously in
| retrospect is kind of nice too even if the banhammer came
| down afterwards when it got repetitive. Anyway, random
| anecdote! On reflection that too is itself part of the
| fascination around people like this, so many of the rest of
| us end up with shared recollections and stories to pass down.
| They become some part of the common lore of communities, the
| mad sorcerer/wiseman living in the cave up the mountain from
| the village of old. Often expelled from regular society for
| good reason, yet still subjects of interest and in some
| societies even a certain sort of respect.
| sva_ wrote:
| > He was banned from HN long ago too.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=xahlee
|
| Does not appear to be banned, just inactive?
| xoa wrote:
| He himself says in that thread I posted he was banned in
| 2009. Maybe he appealed, it was temp, he confused an
| automatic shadowban and enough people vouched his good
| elisp stuff that it was undone (was that even a thing at
| the start?) or he just imagined the whole thing for some
| other reason. I forgot my account from that time and then
| browsed for years before remaking a new one, and I can't
| really remember anymore what moderation was like under
| pg. Xah's stated reason makes no sense and there is
| nothing objectionable in his comments but there it is.
|
| > _" "Hacker News" website, at
| http://news.ycombinator.com/, banned me around 2009-02 or
| earlier."_
|
| -\\_(tsu)_/-. Anyway, no deep meaning there on my part
| and this is all kind of a sidetrack from folks who want
| to talk elisp. it was just seeing the name again after so
| long made me think back and reflect a bit on how human
| society remixes old and new as technology changes. A
| number of communities from the old era can probably think
| of colorful characters like that, not trolls seemingly
| but genuinely neurodivergent, not necessarily welcome yet
| not exactly out of hand rejected either. And with pearls
| amongst everything else. Also echoes of different
| civilizations than classic western.
| cmg wrote:
| I hadn't heard the name in quite some time, but I
| distinctly remember similar behavior on other mailing
| lists. I think it was one of the Omni Group's Mac lists -
| macosx-talk or -admin or -dev, I can't quite recall.
| wisty wrote:
| I don't know if he had a chip on his shoulder. He just
| talks like a troll on slashdot or an old BBS board,
| dropping in with a few paragraphs with a fairly strident
| position, and says anyone who disagrees with him is stupid.
|
| I think people got super upset because he used his real
| name, he's a minor celebrity, and it wasn't a BBS forum.
|
| I think he did it because it got attention, and he didn't
| really care about upsetting a few people on an internet
| forum. I also find it a bit disingenuous when people talk
| about how evil and deranged he is like they've never ever
| seen anything a bit strident posted on the internet.
|
| Yes, there's some correlation between internet trolling and
| socioeconomic tendencies. He might be the kind of guy who
| takes milk from the work fridge and never tosses a quarter
| into the tin. But the people who seem most strident about
| how he's a terrible person are playing the same game as
| him.
|
| As far as I can tell, one of his bigger controversies were
| essentially roasting a certain programming community for
| being smug and elitist (while being smug and elitist
| himself, along with a lot of swearing and insults). I
| wonder if the huge amount of offense caused (and taken) was
| partly because smug and elitist people don't like to be
| roasted like that, especially by a guy who is mostly famous
| for writing introduction to emacs tutorials (thus not
| exactly a technical elite, in a lot of people's eyes).
| seanw444 wrote:
| His Elisp tutorials were (and still are) invaluable to me for
| familiarizing myself with Emacs.
| dvdkhlng wrote:
| > Long love ergomacs!
|
| I recently stumbled over, and started using (and modifying)
| Xah's "xah-fly-keys" emacs bindings, which are a somewhat more
| radical implementation of the ideas behind ergoemacs (e.g. use
| Emacs without any "chording", i.e. without ever having to press
| two keys at once apart from shift+letter).
|
| [1] https://github.com/xahlee/xah-fly-keys
| dotancohen wrote:
| Why not just use Evil, the VIM emulation layer.
| dvdkhlng wrote:
| > Why not just use Evil, the VIM emulation layer.
|
| To cite Xah [1]:
|
| "xah-fly-keys.el is a modal editing mode for emacs, like
| vi, but the design of key/command choice is based on
| command frequency statistics and ease-of-key score. Most
| frequently used commands have most easy keys."
|
| I can confirm, that the amount of work on the hands is
| extremely reduced with xah-fly-keys vs. vanilla emacs
| (depending on where you put the command mode switch),
| though I have no experience with evil or vi to compare
| against.
|
| [1] http://xahlee.info/emacs/misc/ergoemacs_vi_mode.html
| zasdffaa wrote:
| > an infamous troll on comp.lang.lisp
|
| Are you perhaps confusing him with Erik Naggum, cos there just
| happens to be a post on HN about Erik right now. And Erik could
| be something special when a fuse blew!
| ori_b wrote:
| Erik was also a famous troll on comp.lang.lisp. There were
| multiple famous trolls on usenet.
| twic wrote:
| No, Xah was a troll. He trolled on groups i read, too -
| comp.lang.java.programmer or comp.lang.python, or both.
| devnonymous wrote:
| > an infamous troll on comp.lang.lisp
|
| And on the python mailing lists. The last I recall seeing that
| name was in context of crowd funding after going through some
| tough times. It was quite sad. Hope things are better now.
| hatmatrix wrote:
| I learned emacs lisp around 15 years ago - his tutorials were
| essential. The way he remains prolific is amazing.
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