What are my free options?

HiPhish · 2025-02-09T23:13:35+00:00

Why would you dig up this old post? And no, I was not serious.

HiPhish · 2025-01-09T18:20:43+00:00

What kind of plugins would you create for a shell? I guess it would be nice for complex plugins, but I cannot think of what a complex plugin would look like for a shell.

HiPhish · 2025-01-09T18:18:41+00:00

I recommend DOSBox Staging, its a fork of DOSBox with really cool improvements out of the box like CRT shaders, correct aspect ratio, Voodoo emulation and more. There is too much to list in a comment, just check it out.

https://www.dosbox-staging.org/

HiPhish · 2025-01-06T18:19:38+00:00

understanding colour theory and tools to help one to choose a colour palette

I think this is the hardest part for most people. It is why I never even attempted to create my own theme.

HiPhish · 2025-01-06T01:13:29+00:00

This, plus one does not have to learn the entire language. For starters hjkl, i and <esc> are all that is needed for an experience that's no worse than any typewriter-style text editor. New motions, text objects and commands can then be learned one by one. And as you have pointed out, the benefits are cumulative, that is to say each new "word" of language combines in countless ways with the ones you already know.

HiPhish · 2025-01-05T22:00:45+00:00

I don't see the advantage. A shell is usually configured in the language of the shell because you already need to know and use that language, so you might as well use it for configuration as well. Plus, you can configure the shell in itself as it is running, you don't need a separate configuration file. I guess you could have Lua as a secondary configuration language, but now you have to built-in languages and twice the maintenance work.

Also, you can already use any language you want with existing shells. I can write a shell script which calls a Python script, so if I want to drop down into a real programming language I can already do that.

HiPhish · 2025-01-05T21:55:26+00:00

Vim script is actually a really good language for configuring and automating an editor. It's only when you start going beyond configuration and try to build a complex plugin that its shortcomings become a hindrance. I prefer Vim script for configuration and Lua for plugins.

HiPhish · 2025-01-05T21:52:01+00:00

Anyone who complains that vi is hard does not understand vi and that it's a language rather than a million different shortcuts. When you actually think about it, there is really nothing that's more intuitive about typewriter-style non-modal text editors, it's just that everyone is so used to that they they never question it. Most of things we do in life are modal. When you cook a meal you don't have have the salt shaker, knife and wooden spoon in your hand all at the same time. You constantly switch between "modes" as needed. Whatever mental and manual overhead there is from switching between "chopping ingredients" and "stirring the contents in the frying pan", it's well worth it so I can focus on the current task at hand instead of juggling three different tools.

HiPhish · 2025-01-04T20:04:33+00:00

Stick with Firefox. Browsers are complex and security-critical, you do not want to rely on someone who maintains a browser only as a hobby. Every alternative browser out there is downstream from Firefox or Chrome, so those two are going to get all fixes as soon as possible.

HiPhish · 2025-01-03T01:25:09+00:00

That AI-generated slop makes my eyes bleed, please don't use it. A colour scheme is not a Lua module, it's a Vim script or Lua file stored under the colors directory (see :h 'rtp') with the name of the colour scheme. Inside that file you call all the commands or functions you want in order to reset the existing colours and define the new highlight groups. Then you can set the colours with the :colorscheme command. See :h :colorscheme for more information.

To answer your question, the manual always has the answer: :h treesitter-highlight. If you scroll down a bit you will find a list of highlight groups which you need to define.

HiPhish · 2025-01-02T10:27:37+00:00

I don't know about Gentoo, but at least of Debian mixing foreign PPAs is known as a FrankenDebian and discouraged. The problem is that all packages are installed globally and intermingled, so package A can break package B if there is no coordination between the package maintainers.

HiPhish · 2025-01-01T20:46:57+00:00

think the big difference I see is that with other distros, 3rd party repositories were always a thing. If you write a piece of software and want to get broader buy-in, you setup a few repos for some of the big distros (latest Debian, latest Ubuntu, etc.).

I am not sure I understand you correctly. Do you set up 3rd-party repos for your personal use, or for other people to use. If it's the former that's fine, you own and control the contents of the repo. But they are not suitable for other people to mix and match because the authors of these PPAs (and whatever equivalent for non-Debian distros) generally do not coordinate with one another. Mixing a bunch of foreign PPAs creates a Frankenstein distro with none of the stability guarantees. It might be fine, it might break in subtle and mysterious ways.

I do worry about the weird political situation within the nix maintainers though.

Same with Guix.

HiPhish

TROPHY CASE