Re:No! I use CapsLock as my "ESC" key
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Is Caps Lock Dead?
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· Score: 1
I map my CapsLocks to another Tab key. With so much tab-completion available, the slightly shorter reach does pay off.
And in VIM, I use my Alt/Meta keys as Esc: When you are done inserting and want to move back a word, just type Alt+b (after properly configuring your terminal to send Esc+<key> rather than using the 8th bit).
Yes, the market is difficult to predict because the very act of predicting it changes its behavior. It's a positive feedback system. As people try to make predictions faster and faster, the spikes get bigger and bigger. Unless there's some dampening in there, any positive feedback system (that's not at rest) will wind up destroying itself.
--mark you've all seen the movies of the bridge, right?
Innovations developed by Microsoft researchers consistently find their way into company products. The most recent example of this is the number of innovations that were incorporated into Windows 2000, Microsoft's flagship operating system, which launched worldwide on Feb. 17.
That's right, they have produced the number of innovations directly from the void.
One nice feature of development with typical Microsoft tools is the use of ASSERT. In debug builds (where _DEBUG is #defined), it takes a form similar to C's traditional assert(), otherwise, it is opimized away to nothing. This lets you ensure the healthy state of the code that you're developing and then get a nice fast chunk of code to release.
Now, what if the compiler were smart enough to examine these assertions and base some optimization on them? If you ASSERT( x>=0 && x, then the compiler should be quite comfortable in storing x in a 8bit register.
--mark one step towards making better self-documenting code
No no, I think the "rold rush" metaphor is quite appropriate. What happens when people go out and dig bright stuff out of the ground? They have bright stuff that they can trade for food, clothing, etc. They've only created (brought into the human sphere) some shiny metal.
The problem that most of us Slashdot-types have is that we see that these patent lawyers are playing zero-sum games. The lawyers are doing nothing but shift the wealth around; they are expending great quantities of energy and resources to produce nothing. We, with our drive for greater and greater efficiency, abhor this, as should anyone interested in the greater efficiency of the system we live in.
The hidden ESC in some terminal programs
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Interface Zen
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· Score: 1
As an avid (rabid?) vi user, I'm frustrated by the huge distance to the Esc key. Luckily, my terminal program (SecureCRT) lets me turn on an "Emacs mode", where Alt+X sends ESC X. After inserting some text, I just Alt+Enter or Alt+NextCommand and my fingers never need to leave the real keyboard.
Any problem can be solved by another layer of abstraction: Books are nice, but let's generalize that to reading.
I have piqued the curiosity of many a New Jersey Transit train rider by laughing out loud at the articles found within The Annals of Improbable Research, given to me a year ago by my mother. (There also exists the free mailing list mini-AIR.)
So let's generalize: We like to read, and, especially if we commute via public transportation for any time, a gift of light reading could prompt us to think fondly of the giver on a monthly basis.
I made the switch to a Dvorak keyboard about six years ago (using a Windows driver), based only on its novelty and peer pressure. After a week or two of heavy use, I was quite happy typing English text and C code. True, my Qwerty speed had dropped a bit, but you can always look at the keys if you really need to (A tip though: don't look at the keyboard, just touch type; it'll came back as easily as riding a bicycle, especially if you've spent more time at a keyboard than on a bicycle.).
It was only a while, after I had impressed myself by a moderate increase in typing speed, that I realized the true reason to switch to Dvorak: comfort. Your fingers can move much more naturally. They don't get kinked up reaching for punctuation and common letters on the bottom of the keyboard; you can make little runs to squirt out common sequences of letters (runs: kinda like drumming your fingers on the table; start at the pinky and tap each finger in turn) ie "th", "ch", "cr", sh", "nt".
The emphasis on comfort and natural movement has been backed by a friend with carpal tunnel syndrome; switching to Dvorak has made his life as a sysadmin much happier.
Slashdot Mirror
I map my CapsLocks to another Tab key. With so much tab-completion available, the slightly shorter reach does pay off.
And in VIM, I use my Alt/Meta keys as Esc: When you are done inserting and want to move back a word, just type Alt+b (after properly configuring your terminal to send Esc+<key> rather than using the 8th bit).
They need a new name different from "WinXP" but related to it? How about we drop the "X" and get "WinP"?
If Napster, etc can be liable for what users do with its technology, Microsoft is grossly negligent for what users do with its technology.
--mark
"A Class Action, Part II"
Yes, the market is difficult to predict because the very act of predicting it changes its behavior. It's a positive feedback system. As people try to make predictions faster and faster, the spikes get bigger and bigger. Unless there's some dampening in there, any positive feedback system (that's not at rest) will wind up destroying itself.
--mark
you've all seen the movies of the bridge, right?
Innovations developed by Microsoft researchers consistently find their way into company products. The most recent example of this is the number of innovations that were incorporated into Windows 2000, Microsoft's flagship operating system, which launched worldwide on Feb. 17.
That's right, they have produced the number of innovations directly from the void.
father, hatch, make, originate, parent, procreate, produce, sire, spawn
--mark
One nice feature of development with typical Microsoft tools is the use of ASSERT. In debug builds (where _DEBUG is #defined), it takes a form similar to C's traditional assert(), otherwise, it is opimized away to nothing. This lets you ensure the healthy state of the code that you're developing and then get a nice fast chunk of code to release.
Now, what if the compiler were smart enough to examine these assertions and base some optimization on them? If you ASSERT( x>=0 && x, then the compiler should be quite comfortable in storing x in a 8bit register.
--mark
one step towards making better self-documenting code
Does Opera for Linux have command line options?
Yes, but for the moment the only one we'll mention is -page which is used to set the page which Opera displays on start up. For example:
opera -page='www.slashdot.org'though you would think they would throw in a http://
--mark
No no, I think the "rold rush" metaphor is quite appropriate. What happens when people go out and dig bright stuff out of the ground? They have bright stuff that they can trade for food, clothing, etc. They've only created (brought into the human sphere) some shiny metal.
The problem that most of us Slashdot-types have is that we see that these patent lawyers are playing zero-sum games. The lawyers are doing nothing but shift the wealth around; they are expending great quantities of energy and resources to produce nothing. We, with our drive for greater and greater efficiency, abhor this, as should anyone interested in the greater efficiency of the system we live in.
As an avid (rabid?) vi user, I'm frustrated by the huge distance to the Esc key. Luckily, my terminal program (SecureCRT) lets me turn on an "Emacs mode", where Alt+X sends ESC X. After inserting some text, I just Alt+Enter or Alt+NextCommand and my fingers never need to leave the real keyboard.
I have piqued the curiosity of many a New Jersey Transit train rider by laughing out loud at the articles found within The Annals of Improbable Research, given to me a year ago by my mother. (There also exists the free mailing list mini-AIR.)
So let's generalize: We like to read, and, especially if we commute via public transportation for any time, a gift of light reading could prompt us to think fondly of the giver on a monthly basis.
Those of us who prefer fixed width formats will have to wait until the eleventh of November, 3111.
though i refuse to think past december 9999 --mark
I made the switch to a Dvorak keyboard about six years ago (using a Windows driver), based only on its novelty and peer pressure. After a week or two of heavy use, I was quite happy typing English text and C code. True, my Qwerty speed had dropped a bit, but you can always look at the keys if you really need to (A tip though: don't look at the keyboard, just touch type; it'll came back as easily as riding a bicycle, especially if you've spent more time at a keyboard than on a bicycle.).
It was only a while, after I had impressed myself by a moderate increase in typing speed, that I realized the true reason to switch to Dvorak: comfort. Your fingers can move much more naturally. They don't get kinked up reaching for punctuation and common letters on the bottom of the keyboard; you can make little runs to squirt out common sequences of letters (runs: kinda like drumming your fingers on the table; start at the pinky and tap each finger in turn) ie "th", "ch", "cr", sh", "nt".
The emphasis on comfort and natural movement has been backed by a friend with carpal tunnel syndrome; switching to Dvorak has made his life as a sysadmin much happier.
--mark
hey, it's a halfway decent security, too!