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Micro-posting in June

June 29, 2019

Quick recap' of June on the Micro blog.

2019-06-03: Is it worth trying another VCS? Even if free and open-source?
2019-06-03: So I’ve heard that Apple iTunes will be discontinued soon. We will get seperate apps, like their iOS counterparts. I can understand that, although I will miss iTunes a lot. Sadly, this is when it reached a steady state of usability that it get dropped. RIP anyway.
2019-06-03: Yesterday’s evening brunch:

2019-06-03: Learn git concepts, not commands. Very nice tutorial about Git!
2019-06-03: Lovely.
2019-06-03: Statistical Methods for Machine Learning, by Larry Wasserman.
2019-06-03: The Non-parametric Bootstrap as a Bayesian Model. (via @kaz_yos)
2019-06-04: Having fun these days with the #WWDC19 mentions on Twitter. On the one hand, it’s much like reading plain spoilers during GoT; on the other hand, it’s a nice reminder that we’ll probably have to switch back to Linux earlier than expected. Sad but true.
2019-06-04: The Common Lisp Cookbook: Using Emacs as an IDE. When I switched to Doom a few weeks ago, I realized that it now has full support for SLY. #emacs
2019-06-04: Tired of mutt or mu4e? aerc is an email client that runs in your terminal. (via HN)
2019-06-04: Oz static site generation. Note that Oz is a “data visualization and scientific document processing library for Clojure built around Vega-Lite & Vega” (as found in Gorilla-REPL). #clojure
2019-06-05:   Listening to some ECM records while it’s raining.
2019-06-05: Late readings on #database:- Temporal Tables and Joins in Streaming SQL- Categorical Query Language
2019-06-05: Never heard of the 7GUIs challenge. Here is a proposal in Racket, by Matthias Felleisen himself. #scheme
2019-06-05: Exercises from functional programming books in Clojure, Common Lisp, and Scheme. #lisp
2019-06-06: Using AWK and R to parse 25TB.
2019-06-07: > At heart, a programming language embodies a bet, the bet that a given set of abstractions will increase developers’ ability to deliver software that meets its requirements.> – On the Impact of Programming Languages on Code Quality (arXiv).
2019-06-07: So I can’t connect to Bitbucket anymore, which heppened to many other users since the BitBucket/Atlassian fusion. That’s the beauty of Git. Let’s go relocate those old repos to GitHub!
2019-06-07: So we are definitely done with GoT. Sad news (warning, little spoil here): they killed all the pretty little girls all along but Tyrion stayed alive. Enjoy!
2019-06-07: Time to go watch the next Season of The 100.
2019-06-07: VS Code is really great for Python. I didn’t have a chance to try the MS C/C++ functionalities, but Calva is on my todo list anyway.
2019-06-07: Mathematics for Computer Science, by Eric Lehman and Tom Leighton. A more recent version of the textbook than the one referenced by John D. Cook is available here.
2019-06-07: You dig Scheme. The world is coded in C. You get both. #scheme
2019-06-10:   Tindersticks, Curtain.
2019-06-11:   Alboran Trio, Meltemi.
2019-06-11: I just discovered the Powerlevel9k zsh theme, which looks really great. This is a bit too much to my taste but I’ll keep this on my totry list.
2019-06-11: Latest action movies watched: Siberia a few days ago (since everyone likes to talk about Keanu Reeves right now) – didn’t like it much; Agent 47, yesterday. Latest book read: Pactum Salis (Olivier Bourdeaut) – really great reading!
2019-06-11: Yet another zsh prompt minimalistic theme.
2019-06-11: First Clojure Program, and it’s Tetris! #clojure
2019-06-11: From design patterns to category theory (via HN).
2019-06-11: Harden shell scripts with improved robustness & verbosity.
2019-06-12: It’s raining again, and I’m done with the 800th micro-post by now.
2019-06-12: The Desktop Neo project looks super exciting. This is second time (see Introducing Mercury OS) I noticed some fresh new ideas re. OS core UIs.
2019-06-13:   Alboran Trio, Near Gale.
2019-06-13: Always interesting to find some gems at QA websites:> Four years, 1400 views, and two dozen upvotes before a review on a site dedicated to code reviews points toward unreviewability as a prominent feature of the code. What hinders reviewability is, I think, the high level of cognitive load the code places on anyone reading it. – https://codereview.stackexchange.com/a/147918
2019-06-13: Currently reading a review on Molecular Population Genetics. I have no idea what movie I can watch to occupy the rest of my evening and I’ll probably end up drinking on my couch, which is also my bed. Bad news from the stars…
2019-06-13: Computational Drawing Book. I find myself more and more interested in generative art, so this is a nice find. (via @mattesl) #dataviz
2019-06-13: Cultures of programming: Understanding the history of programming through controversies and technical artifacts (PDF, 75 pp.). (via @Jose_A_Alonso)
2019-06-13: Functional Programming in OCaml.
2019-06-13: Interactive Charts with D3.js. (via HN) #dataviz
2019-06-13: Introduction to Algorithms, by Thomas H. Cormen, Charles E. Leiserson, and Ronald L. Rivest.
2019-06-13: One of the last person, with Dirk and Matt, I find interesting to follow given the recent evolution of the R language. I started with the R Inferno, by Patrick Burns, then discovered Norman’s books, in addition to the MASS book. That was all what I needed to get started. Now, this is illuminating:> R is rapidly devolving into two mutually unintelligible dialects, ordinary R and the Tidyverse. (…) It might be more acceptable if the Tidyverse were superior to ordinary R, but in my opinion it is not. It makes things more difficult for beginners. E.g. the Tidyverse has so many functions, some complex, that must be learned to do what are very simple operations in base R. Pipes, apparently meant to help beginners learn R, actually make it more difficult, I believe. And the Tidyverse is of questionable value for advanced users.If you’re more versed into Julia these days, see also R vs. Julia. #rstats #python
2019-06-13: Significant Pattern Mining for Time Series. I really like such dynamic illustrations.
2019-06-14: Formatting floating point numbers. (via HN)
2019-06-14: [Quickdocs](Library Documentation Hosting for Common Lisp). Like Quicklisp, but for docs. #lisp
2019-06-17:   Cigarettes After Sex, Cigarettes After Sex.
2019-06-17: > If you are a professional writer – i.e., if someone else is getting paid to worry about how your words are formatted and printed – Emacs outshines all other editing software in approximately the same way that the noonday sun does the stars. It is not just bigger and brighter; it simply makes everything else vanish. – https://batsov.com/articles/2011/11/19/why-emacs/
2019-06-17: > P-values are a practical success but a critical failure. Scientists the world over use them, but scarcely a statistician can be found to defend them. Bayesians in particular find them ridiculous, but even the modern frequentist has little time for them. – Stephen Senn, Two Cheers for P-values?
2019-06-17: > Python is not built with math and statistics in mind, and this doesn’t work without using a package.If you’re looking to move from R to Python, here are two interesting posts: Python is Weird (an unabashedly biased intro to Python for R users); Programming with Data: Python and Pandas. The first one, from which the above quotation is extracted, provides a side-by-side comparison of some of the features of each language. You might like or not, since R is a DSL and Python is not a good PL to compare. The second one is a complete tutorial on Pandas (including linear regression) in IPython notebooks. Besides, Chris Albon’s Technical Notes On Using Data Science & Artificial Intelligence To Fight For Something That Matters are also worth a look. #python
2019-06-17: LOL. Learn Shortcuts. Work Smarter.
2019-06-17: TIL about chemacs, an Emacs profile manager/switcher (à la IPython/jupyter). #emacs
2019-06-17: TIL about the ash function. So, (defun square (n) (ash 1 (1- n))) is way simpler compared to:(defun power (n m)(reduce #'* (loop for x below n collect m)))(defun square (n)(power (- n 1) 2))(Me playing with the CL track at https://exercism.io). #lisp
2019-06-17: Easier slideshows using Racket’s slideshow tool. #racket
2019-06-17: Presenting the Eshell. (via HN) #emacs
2019-06-17: rga: Meet ripgrep with PDF full-search. (via HN)
2019-06-18:   Led Zeppelin, The Complete BBC Sessions (Live).
2019-06-18:   Let’s get started with Keith Jarrett and Co.
2019-06-18: A really good read on Micro Frontends with a detailed application, available on Github. #js
2019-06-18: Hot off the kitchen:

2019-06-18: Interesting thread on Reddit: Optimising Common Lisp. #lisp
2019-06-18: Ouch! An operating system written in Common Lisp. (via HN) #lisp
2019-06-18: So, Amazon now offers two (free) versions of legacy Java: Amazon Corretto. (via Daniel Lemire)
2019-06-19:   Current Joys, A Different Age.
2019-06-19:   If you like piano and the ECM records.
2019-06-19: Here is a summary of my tweets over the past few months. Obviously, using custom scripts to automate the creation/commit/publish steps for the micro section has helped a lot.

My own musings on the Micro blog over the years


2019-06-19: If you are a CLI junkie, this is a worthy addition to your toolbet: radian: a modern console for R. #rstats
2019-06-19: Algorithmique du texte (English version). See also Sequence comparison.
2019-06-19: Coeffects: Context-aware programming languages.
2019-06-19: Functional Design and Programming . #clojure
2019-06-19: Learn-*.org, where * is Python, C, Perl, SQL, etc.
2019-06-19: Setup dynamic ClojureScript and Quil environment with emacs and figwheel.
2019-06-19: Traité de Programmation en Common Lisp. #lisp
2019-06-20: In case you are looking for some nice apps for your menu bar, go check Brett’s latest post: The Top 20 Apps not in my Dock. #apple
2019-06-20: Just came across this post again, and I dig a bit about MS own LSP. Although it would be cool to have an LSP as powerful as that of VS Code, the installation steps are a little discouraging. And since the default LSP that I used in Doom Emacs has been enhanced a lot (it no longer hang on with Python code, for example), I think I will deal with factory settings. #emacs
2019-06-20: Ok, so for now I’m done with Bitbucket since I can no longer connect to my BitBucket or Atlassian account, and I’ve been migrating part of my Git repos over Github.
2019-06-20: TIL Ross Ihaka (one of the two fathers of R) is retired. I guess I will never see the reincantation of R as a Scheme dialect. #rstats
2019-06-20: Bit Twiddling Hacks. #clang
2019-06-20: Implementing Recursion with the Y Combinator in any Language. Arguably, the C implementation looks weird compared to, say, Racket or Python.
2019-06-20: PyonR (pronounced “Pioneer”) is an implementation of the Python programming language for the Racket platform. #racket
2019-06-21: The Unix Workbench, by Sean Kross.
2019-06-21: Thirty-three Miniatures: Mathematical and Algorithmic Applications of Linear Algebra (PDF, 188 pp.).
2019-06-21: expss package provides tabulation functions with support for ‘SPSS’-style labels, multiple / nested banners, weights, multiple-response variables and significance testing. #rstats
2019-06-21: #rstats tip of the day:rtable(installed.packages()[,"License"])

2019-06-24: Python programs to practice or demonstrate skills, by Peter Norvig. #python
2019-06-25: How data.table’s fread can save you a lot of time and memory, and take input from shell commands. #rstats
2019-06-25: The Delaunay’s Dual.
2019-06-25: The Racket Manifesto. #racket
2019-06-25: Vim Bootstrap: A generator which provides a simple method of generating a .vimrc configuration for vim.
2019-06-25: swank-racket works like a charm! #racket
2019-06-28:   Alboran Trio, Metlemi.
2019-06-28: First “ratatouille de l’été”. Sounds good too.

2019-06-28: I learned a lot by just reading the following thread: challenge: best fibo implementation under the new laziness?. #lisp
2019-06-28: Licensing matters surely. However, I feel like it’s quite a good approach to allow using a given software for free but to ask to give it back.> The meaning of our current license is, in short, the following: you can use ECL for any purpose in any setting (including commercial applications), but if you commit changes to ECL itself you are obliged to share these changes (and only them).
2019-06-28: Second day without anti-HT treatment. Feeling good, 11/6, starting Entresto in the evening. In the meantime I’m pushing Racket commits because it also feels so good.
2019-06-28: Categorical Query Language: A principled way to transform data. See also John Cook’s post on Category theory for data science.
2019-06-28: Fork: A fast and friendly git client for Mac and Windows. Note that GH notifications are embedded in the menu bar.
2019-06-29: Even if it focus on JS, this blog post has a lot of useful advices for configuring Vim quickly: A guide to setting up Vim for JavaScript development. See also Setting up Vim for JavaScript development. #vim
2019-06-29: Is there a style convention for Common Lisp recursive helper functions?. Interesting SO thread of GP in writing CL. #lisp

See Also

» Micro-posting in May » Micro-posting in April » Micro-posting in March » One year micro-blogging » Micro-posting in February