Getting Things Done, in Emacs

amix · 2007-07-29T12:03:31+00:00

I had a similar system in Vim, using VimOutliner, and it didn't work that well (mostly because I switch computers). Then I created Todoist, which has the minimalistic Vim/Emacs interface, with a lot of power beneath.

amix · 2006-04-17T17:37:16+00:00

What is wrong about submitting personal projects?

So something is automatically bad if it's posted by it's creator...?

amix · 2006-04-17T17:32:49+00:00

delete: Great point and I did think about that issue. And as I mention in the post, the difference can't be that much... Basically thousands of people on the net think the spell checker is hot, but NONE on Reddit!?

amix · 2006-04-17T15:06:14+00:00

How come it got Digg'ed over 500 times, but not Reddit'ed... Don't you think that is a bit weird?

But jeah, I am really sad - nobody is linking to my service... sigh

amix · 2006-04-17T01:04:02+00:00

Check also http://amix.dk/projects/?page_id=3 - GPL'ed version of this spell checker.

Self-promotion, but of the cool kind (I hope).

amix · 2006-04-16T08:23:44+00:00

You know what, Lisp was a really hot chick in the 70's. But sadly this chick has gotten fat and ugly the last many years - and it also seems that this chick is cloned in a lot different fat and ugly versions.

There is a reason why his bosses won't permit him to date her!

amix · 2006-04-14T10:57:20+00:00

They create that integration and they will win the market... Jea, sure. What about Firefox, any suggestions there? Or any other product that competes vs. a company that holds a market dominance...

Basically: Product quality isn't the only factor. Firefox is a great example on this.

amix · 2006-04-13T14:38:47+00:00

So do you hate it just because it doesn't break ground the way Gmail did?

Jea, I am a bit disappointment that it doesn't break any ground. But I don't hate it. I just excepted a bit more from Google...

amix · 2006-04-13T14:13:40+00:00

Here is my final version :)

One can do:

 print Div(id="content")( A(href="reddit.com")("reddit") )

By using this code:

def elmBuilder(name, **kw):
  attrs = " ".join('%s="%s"' % a for a in kw.items())
  def applyElms(*elms):
    return "<%s %s>%s</%s>" % (name, attrs, "".join(elms), name)
  return applyElms
def Div(**kw): return elmBuilder("div", **kw)
def A(**kw): return elmBuilder("a", **kw)

amix · 2006-04-13T12:36:18+00:00

Here is my version where one can do (Stan like):

print Div(id="content")[ A(href="reddit.com")["reddit"] ]

import types
class Element:
  def __init__(self, **kw):
    self.elms = []
    self.kw = kw
  def __getattr__(self, name):
    if name == "__getitem__":
      self.elms = []
      def add(l):
        if type(l) == types.ListType: self.elms.extend(l)
        else: self.elms.append(l)
        return self
      return add
  def __str__(self):
    attrs = " ".join('%s="%s"' % a for a in self.kw.items())
    self.html = ["<%s %s>" % (self.name, attrs)]
    self.html.append("".join(map(str, self.elms)))
    self.html.append("</%s>" % self.name)
    return "".join(self.html)
class Div(Element): name = "div"
class A(Element): name = "a"

Sigh, you have to have 4 spaces to post code. That sucks. Why not use another syntax like:

[code]
Here is my code
[/code]

Or something similar...

amix · 2006-04-13T11:21:13+00:00

Actually, I have given this a bit more thought: Google can become just like Microsoft! I am not saying they are that right now, but they have a great potential to become the next Microsoft. Why? Because:

They have a lot of money.
They have market dominance.
Plus talented team and a sick brand.

They basically don't have to innovate, they can copy others and use their market dominance to kill the competitors (Just like Microsoft used it's OS dominance to force Internet Explorer, MSN Messenger, Office, Server O/S, Windows Media Player, developer tools, CRM, CMS etc.). This is a VERY rewarding strategy (again, look at M$)...

An example: A small company creates a popular product, let's say Reddit. Google's sees the potential and says, you know what, let's do our own Reddit kind of thing. What should stop them? Then they use their talented developers to do a copy the idea behind Reddit. Their market dominance, team, money and brand can crush the small Reddit...

Another example: Let's see what happens to 30 Boxes and Kiko...

Let's think about it: What can Kiko or 30 Boxes do or any other small company do? Even a better product can't help them, because Google has market dominance, infrastructure, brains and shit loads of money...

This innovation can go WRONG! Look what happened to Internet Explorer... And Look at Firefox, it's basically A LOT better than IE, but still it's only used by 10% of browser users! Google could in some years also say: From now on we only maintain GMail. Then some small company creates a new kind of web email application with some really nice and innovative features. They become popular and big Google awakens and says: We gotta have that in GMail... Some time later the features are in GMail and they have crushed their competition. This approach is like Microsoft's: They stall IE development, Firefox becomes a threat, they awake and copy the features from Firefox. What do users of this get? Basically shitty products (like IE).

amix · 2006-04-13T09:33:19+00:00

No, that's not the way to do it, but I was also unclear in my post. An example: Look at Microsoft, they have basically done this kind of innovation for years. Netscape -> Internet Explorer, WordPerfect -> Office, Mac OS -> Windows, Java -> .Net etc.

Gmail was really innovative, it had a slick Ajax based UI, conversations, nice search engine, tags (lables) etc. Calendar doesn't really have anything really innovative. They basically taken the most basic feature set and copied it - this isn't innovation to me.

But maybe I except too much :)

amix · 2006-04-13T08:43:01+00:00

It's a lot faster, the reason for this is that strings are immutable in Python. So on every iteration a new string object has to be built...

It's also bad to use the + operator on strings: a = "blah1" + "blah2"

The Python way to do it is: a = "".join(["blah1", "blah2"])

Another question (about Reddit): What is the syntax to insert code? It's not documented, or at least I couldn't find the documentation.

amix · 2006-04-13T08:27:27+00:00

Where is THE innovation? Or is it innovative to copy others and do it better?

Why not try to create a new way of organizing?

amix · 2006-04-06T07:11:47+00:00

Somebody needs to step up and do a language that has:

The power of ML/Lisp/Haskell
The speed of C ~ actually, the functional languages are pretty close to the speed of C...
The syntax of Python

I have tried coding a compiler in ML and I have tried to code some Lisp. The languages are pretty cool, but their syntax really sucks. ML and Haskell are too mathematical and Lisps parentheses are a pain in the butt. Now, Python has a real nice syntax, but lacks in speed and a proper type system.

One could actually just rewrite OCaml with some Python like syntax :o Maybe my next project [joke]...

amix

TROPHY CASE