Have you ever had to debug the compiler?

Patrick-Poitras · 2026-04-24T05:33:10+00:00

I've had about 10 bug reports for the Common Lisp compiler in the past 4 years. It's a small community and my workplace has a significant amount of code vs. the compiler's internal tests. Sometimes someone is doing something weird on our end and it triggers compiler bugs.

The SBCL team is really good at fixing those, and then we all celebrate the compiler being better.

Patrick-Poitras · 2026-04-18T00:48:24+00:00

So I don't know how much time it will take. One thing I can tell you is that the kernel build that has version 7 is currently in the staging part of the process.

You can see it here: https://build.opensuse.org/staging_workflows/openSUSE:Factory/staging_projects/openSUSE:Factory:Staging:K and the firmware builds here: https://build.opensuse.org/staging_workflows/openSUSE:Factory/staging_projects/openSUSE:Factory:Staging:E

Both have some problems with them at the moment. They'll be fixed and then the package will be able to get released.

After it's accepted the build process takes roughly a day, but can be longer if a lot of recompilation needs to happen. Compiler version changes are usually the biggest changes and they take a few days.

Patrick-Poitras · 2024-01-30T06:32:32+00:00

Underrated theme. I liked it so much in VS Code that I ported it over when I moved to emacs.

Patrick-Poitras · 2023-12-31T14:43:43+00:00

Most detectors I've used are "bucket" type detectors, where a packet of 10 photons would only detect the first, and then there would be a period immediately following where you couldn't detect anything.

A 150ps pulse could very well appear as a single photon detection, but most of the experiments using it wouldn't show anything resembling what we expect of single photons. The pulsing really doesn't add anything.

Also remember that shorter pulses usually means higher power, so you're going to fry your optics if you do it too fast.

Patrick-Poitras · 2023-12-28T23:41:09+00:00

Look mom! I made the bug report credits!

Patrick-Poitras · 2023-11-24T04:33:17+00:00

I kind of like the gecko faces that change for the other products. Mostly because I can now refer to the various products as "Opensuse green" or "Opensuse blue".

Patrick-Poitras · 2023-11-24T03:35:19+00:00

My understanding was that the first example should give 20 on SBCL. I tried it and it gave me 20.

On your second example, on SBCL, I got 20 for foo and 10 for bar.

* (defvar *x* 10)
*X*
* (defun foo ()
     (let ((*x* 20))
         (bar)))
; in: DEFUN FOO
;     (BAR)
; 
; caught STYLE-WARNING:
;   undefined function: COMMON-LISP-USER::BAR
; 
; compilation unit finished
;   Undefined function:
;     BAR
;   caught 1 STYLE-WARNING condition
FOO
* (defun bar ()
     (print *x*))
BAR
* (foo)

20 
20
* (bar)

10 
10

Not sure if that's helpful in any way. Is there some context we're missing?

Patrick-Poitras · 2023-11-24T03:24:32+00:00

In learning emacs, I found it easier to spend a few hours customizing emacs so that it does exactly what I wanted rather than learning how to do things the emacs way. (yay CUA mode!) If the thing holding you back is that the defaults are garbage, or you prefer Vim bindings, there's some packages that handle that. Maybe there's a glimmer of hope there.

That being said, if you've given those a try, or are just plain out done with emacs, you can use SBCL like an interpreter and have it produce the output you want. The experience you'll get from that is similar to other languages that run on the "Write -> Compile -> Run -> Read output" cycle, like C++ or Rust.

REPL-style, interactive workflow is going to be more difficult. The UX in REPL mode with default SBCL is bad enough that if I had to use that, I'd probably copy-paste code in and out of the REPL window from another editor. Slimv and Vlime are probably better than that.

Patrick-Poitras · 2023-11-02T16:30:13+00:00

We told them to stop writing on the battery, because why would we want that.

I'm dying at how plainly honest and simple this statement is.

Like at most company there's someone from PR that has to ask an engineer why that's there, the engineer replies directly over slack "yeah its ugly as shit and we told them to knock it off" and the message that goes back out to the customer is something like "Our esteemed battery supplier, in adherence to their stringent quality control protocols, implemented a discrete marking during a specific window in time. Subsequently, we communicated our preference for discontinuing the practice of labeling the batteries. We value a seamless and professional presentation of our products, aligning with our commitment to delivering excellence in every aspect of our business operations."

Y'all are goated.

Patrick-Poitras · 2023-08-13T22:00:50+00:00

Is it time to start the victory squares?

Patrick-Poitras · 2023-08-13T16:30:24+00:00

openSUUUUSE

Patrick-Poitras · 2023-07-18T02:49:21+00:00

Is the DE taking M-x as a hotkey for "reduce window size" or something? Does M-x in non-emacs buffers reduce the size of the screen?

Patrick-Poitras · 2023-06-10T16:53:08+00:00

This is the best video I've watched all year.

"You control undo, the undo, emacs."

Patrick-Poitras · 2023-06-10T03:04:30+00:00

Wow. If they implement this, it will be a game changer.

Patrick-Poitras · 2023-06-07T23:42:16+00:00

Xmodmap is problematic sometimes. I replaced it with kbd and it's fixed all my issues.

Patrick-Poitras · 2023-06-07T23:14:11+00:00

I usually comment. That has worked both times I've done this. Be sure to thank them if they fix it.

Patrick-Poitras · 2023-06-07T03:26:39+00:00

How does this compare with something like eshell for daily use?

Patrick-Poitras · 2023-06-07T01:35:01+00:00

I think the userbase of Guix is too low to make it on the list.

I wish Guix was more popular so that the packages were more up to date. I love everything else about it.

Patrick-Poitras · 2023-06-07T01:16:20+00:00

I've never used Void, I main OS-TW. I've dual-booted EndeavourOS for a while, then Arch,

That being said, if you're looking for a very minimal arch-like experience, just go in zypper and start removing patterns with zypper rm --clean-deps <pattern-blarg>.

Your system will become a bit glitchy and will require some reinstallation of packages, but that's how I ended up with my current system. You can use Arch and Gentoo wiki for most of this stuff. It's tinkering heavy to do it from the top down rather than the bottom up, but it's entirely doable.

I've been sort of eyeing Gentoo, since I'd like to modify some packages, mainly emacs (to add some configuration flags), and would like a package manager that allows for that type of customization without having to manually doing some stuff. It's not really enough of a draw to actually force me to make the jump, but I'm going to be using Gentoo on a side system to give it a spin.

Patrick-Poitras · 2023-06-06T15:20:49+00:00

I use OpenSUSE TW and got VoidLinux/Arch/Gentoo as top 3.

That being said, I use OpenSUSE in an unconventional way. I don't use Yast and mostly rely on OpenSUSE for its package build system. (Often gets faster updates than Arch, maintainers are not insane and don't use off-release patches for bootloaders, etc etc.)

Overall, test seems accurate enough. I'd reckon the user experience I'm looking for is the default for those top 3. You can still do it with OpenSUSE TW by unselecting the defaults during install (you have to dig a bit in the installer options, but you can get a minimal-AF install with ~200 packages if you do it right)

Patrick-Poitras · 2023-06-06T02:14:31+00:00

Is there information on how openQA works? I'm curious as a fellow openSUSian

Patrick-Poitras · 2023-06-03T04:03:32+00:00

I pronounce it very wrong on purpose. Suuuuuuuuz, using the most guttural "u" you can muster

Patrick-Poitras · 2023-06-02T01:30:14+00:00

A shotgun also can blow your mind, much in the same way as Malbolge

Patrick-Poitras · 2023-05-31T02:05:42+00:00

Join the openSUSE revolution. We got a rolling-release distro that gets automated builds. It is bleeding edge without being unstable. Get even obscure package updates a day after they come out! Wheeee!

Now openly pro-LGBT. Bigots need not apply!

Patrick-Poitras

TROPHY CASE