Gemini Articles of Interest

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Oct 01, 2022

A Gemini client^* is needed for the following links.

• Anti-features of IMs

  All commercial programs are filled with anti-features to make them more addictive, which is nothing new under the Sun. I want to focus on the most popular "features" of instant-messaging programs.

• Using Bluetooth from the terminal

• Dynamically Typed Code Is Just Not Good Engineering

  I'm sorry but it's just not. Languages like JavaScript, Python, Ruby, Lisps, and (my personal favourite) AWK are fine for writing simple bits of automation and general operations stuff but code that is going to be executed in a production environment, code that has to be reliable and maintained for years to come, simply has to be written in a language that has native support for strict, static typing.

  There is nothing that improves my productivity more than having the supercomputer in front of me analyse my code for stupid mistakes. Dynamically typed code is like word processing without a spell checker. I would honestly rather be forced to use ed to edit all my code but keep my type checker than go without. When writing code I make stupid mistakes all the time, and I really don't think that I'm bad at writing code. The only thing I can conclude is that most devs that swear by dynamically typed languages are blind to their own mistakes.

• A Mod For OpenTTD

  Thankfully this can be amended by writing a mod of a type called NewGRF (New Graphic Resource File). There are several tools available for doing this. The first I tried was TrueGRF, which is a web based tool with a lovely and usable interface. It really was a joy to work with.

• Avoid Linux locking up in low memory situations using earlyoom

  Within operating system kernels, at least for Linux and the BSDs, there is a mechanism called "out of memory killer" which is triggered when the system is running out of memory and some room must be made to make the system responsive again.

  However, in practice this OOM mechanism doesn't work well. If the system is running out of memory, it will become totally unresponsive, and sometimes the OOM killer will help, but it may take like 30 minutes, but sometimes it may be stuck forever.

• Dabbling in CGI

  I've always been more of a CGI guy. Output of pages are exactly what gets displayed, no pages with a single div and no content when i examine source. Kind of an odd thing to say as a full stack developer. Within Gemini there isn't any other option for dynamic data so I feel right at home.

• 2x Forth

  There are a bunch of rambling essays by Chuck Moore and Jeff Fox at www.ultratechnology.com, referring to 10x Forth and 100x Forth and whatnot.

  They are a fun read for us desperate for Forth trivia and memorabilia... Jeff Fox (Godess rest his soul¹) was a bit of a windbag (look who is talking -- I am sure I am called worse), and was not a good explainer of things (neither is Chuck, honestly), but I am due to reread his site because there are morsels of good stuff there.

  [...]

  This will not work in your dad's Forth (GForth?), because of interleaved headers. I think you can do that in ColorForth. My newest Forth keeps heads elsewhere, so it is perfectly legal to run into the next-defined word.

^* Gemini links can be opened using Gemini software. It’s like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.