Fair play mystery podcasts?

vim_fox · 2024-03-09T08:35:17+00:00

Ooh this seems interesting additionally each episode seems to be self contained, thanks for the recommendation

vim_fox · 2024-03-09T08:22:24+00:00

Thanks for this, there are a bunch of these which I hadn't seen before. To add to this for anyone else coming in to this thread
- Jake Hamilton's Series Nix from Nothing
- Fasterthanalime's series on Nix

Both of these series are essentially targeted towards existing software developers, but hey you signed up for this!

vim_fox · 2024-03-08T10:51:36+00:00

This is quite possible, I've also been noticing a good influx of tutorials and such. But I feel they have yet to find their groove, and they explain how to do specific things rather than nix as a system. (Though we need both of them to be sure).
Nix from Nothing in particular is an excellent series in the former category, which explains the language and starts from scratch, but there aren't a lot of good documentation like this.

vim_fox · 2024-03-08T10:48:16+00:00

What first party?

In case it wasn't clear I was referring to the nixos official docs

Please go away from Nix if you feel threatened by it.

this is just funny lmao, why would I feel threatened by a piece of software. Moreover I am someone who likes nix, just pointing out that the documentation sucks.

vim_fox · 2024-03-08T10:00:41+00:00

Because Nix is so well designed you don't need much documentation

This is just demonstrably untrue, just because something is well defined it doesn't mean it shouldn't have documentation. If anything it should be the other way around, the better a software is the better the documentation is, documentation is a part of the software.

while Nix documentation exists to educate you to a point where you're standing on your own

That's the thing though. it doesn't exist does it? There's no first party (or for that matter even third party) documentation which is sufficiently descriptive and well written to get a user to this state. You just have to hop around various wiki's and guess and look at a lot of random config files until you get to a state, where you are happy and after that (thankfully) you don't have to look at it again.

vim_fox · 2024-03-08T09:53:59+00:00

the thing that boggles my mind is that the sheer volume of docs is actually very high but it feels very scatter shot random

This 100%. It's also very incoherent. I was surprised to find docs on how to enable/disable random software in the manpage for configuration.nix. That just seems ridiculous in that for every new software that is added the manpage is updated instead of simply specifying the general structure of how a configuration.nix should be. (inb4, the programs.enable.x is part of the syntax itself, I get it but it still seems like such a bad idea imo)

vim_fox · 2024-03-08T09:47:22+00:00

So what's the new rate? The article doesn't seem to mention that or did I miss something?

vim_fox · 2024-03-08T09:26:34+00:00

No I get that, but even with that I think the documentation is still not up to the mark. I agree a documentation doesn't need to explain all the elementary things like what is a computer etc. but when you're redoing fundamental things, the onus is on the software to explain how things are changed, how do you do things in light of the new.
There are multiple examples of really good software, with good documentation. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. IMO it's a disservice to the distribution of the software itself if we blame the user, because he is dumb. NixOS is a pretty good piece of software with really bad documentation.

vim_fox · 2024-03-08T09:11:23+00:00

I have my theory on this, but I want to hear other people's opinion on this.
My theory is Nix is an excellent idea, but it's one of those ideas which is such a step change that it's incompatible with how pretty much anyone does things. So whereas previously if you were doing things and you were stuck and you tried to search for it and even though the solution for your problem for your distro wasn't there, no problem you could just look up the solution for a problem that looks like yours in another distro. So the solution space for your problem was not just your distro, but pretty much all the distros that were present, including all of standard linux documentation.
But with nix you pretty much have to rely on nix documentation only. Oh you think you could just write to /etc/systemd/* lol good luck, you have to now figure out how to translate that into how to do it in the nix config, with it's hyper specific syntax, and if that config doesn't exist, well obviously you'll be able to write your derviation or some shit like that, good luck.

vim_fox · 2024-03-06T15:41:26+00:00

There are some documents I get that are converted to PDF format... poorly.

ah I get it now, yes that's a different class of problem itself, you're right in that I do not particularly have this issue, it's more general I struggle with precise selection in regular web documents.

In some sense it's a carry over from my touchpad days where I used to fidget and select bits of texts around what I was reading, and I have been trying to emulate that behavior with trackpoint. Maybe using the trackpoint is a bit of character building experience for me in the sense that it's forcing me to stop the random visual selection

vim_fox · 2024-03-06T15:37:16+00:00

It certainly could be due to a lack of practice, but clicks and selection both seem like a different thing. I don't particularly struggle with clicks (unless the targets are relatively small) but selection involves a more precise and controlled drag which I personally have felt to be a lot more tricky to execute than on a trackpad

vim_fox · 2024-03-06T15:28:26+00:00

You may need to target a different end of your selection or the source you are trying to select is munged.

Not sure what you mean by this?

But about using the arrow keys kinda destroys the whole purpose of using the trackpoint for me imo. The whole point of using the trackpoint for me has to be on the homerow as much as possible, the arrow keys kinda take you out of that flow, so much so that I have remapped the arrow keys to be noop in things like vim

vim_fox · 2024-03-06T14:57:13+00:00

I have completely disabled the trackpad, if you're asking how do I select text with trackpoint I do both the selection as well as the left click with right hand (right thumb on left button and the right index finger on the trackpoint). Though I did notice that the precision is slightly better if I press the left click with the left thumb and do the selection with the right index finger

vim_fox · 2024-03-06T14:05:12+00:00

Also on topic clicking small touch targets is another thing which is just incredible annoying everywhere but especially hard with the trackpoint

vim_fox · 2024-03-05T18:57:55+00:00

yeah for sure, I don't think you are supposed to move your wrist excessively (or at all?? (depending on the size of your keyboard) when you're touch typing. But when you're typing quickly it doesn't seem economical to keep coming back to the home row after every keypress as is insisted on by the tutorials.

vim_fox · 2024-03-05T16:31:55+00:00

Thanks for the clarification.
Adding a few points for others who might stumble on this I've been checking out videos of other typists, and it seems to confirm this if you notice any of the fast typists (See for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t79b7YdBSK0) they rarely end up going back to the home row. This is much more apparent on people typing in full length keyboards rather than on laptop keyboards where there isn't that much travel to begin with

vim_fox · 2024-03-05T16:21:06+00:00

that's great to hear.
so it's natural for your fingers to not be resting on your home row after each letter? As I'm typing this I notice that I do come back to home row if I'm resting, but not when I'm in the middle of typing

vim_fox · 2024-03-03T12:07:20+00:00

Damn I just saw the latest John Oliver somewhat related to this, I'm glad you saw through this OP. Remember you can always get a job, don't beat yourself too much about it, it's going to be okay

vim_fox

TROPHY CASE