news
Programming Leftovers
-
Sandor Dargo ☛ C++26: More function wrappers
C++26 continues to fill the gaps in our type-erased callable wrapper story. We already had std::function since C++11 and std::move_only_function since C++23, but there were still missing pieces. Now we’re getting two new additions: std::copyable_function and std::function_ref.
-
Max Seelemann ☛ Xcode should be decoupled from Swift versions
Those of you who follow me on Mastodon might have noticed that I recently ran into a compiler bug that was introduced in Xcode 26.5 (or more specifically, Swift 6.3.2). I was unusually late this time: I normally have the betas running, but didn’t, and even the release had been out for a few days when I installed it. Like any good developer, the first thing I did was run our test suite.
-
Patrick Louis ☛ May 2026 Projects
A year, and an eternity, has passed since my last update. The paths I'm deliberately walking on, and routes I'm taking, keep on getting intriguing but one thing remains certain, the positivity, adaptability, and flexibility. I chose to adapt, indeed, and fully embrace my lifestyle. Every moment is a treasure in life, wherever it takes me and wherever I take it!
-
Perl / Raku
-
Olaf Alders ☛ The Great Perl Toolchain Summit CLI Throwdown 2026
Last year a few of us at the Perl Toolchain Summit got together to trade command-line tips. I wrote up the notes. This year there was some demand for a repeat, so we continued the tradition. Hopefully you find some helpful tips.
-
[Old] Jukka “Yucca” Korpela ☛ Perl Lessons
A typical simple use of Perl would be for extracting information from a text file and printing out a report or for converting a text file into another form. In fact, the name Perl was formed from the expression Practical Extraction and Report Language. But Perl provides a large number of tools for quite complicated problems, including system administration tasks, which can often be programmed rather portably in Perl.
Perl has powerful string-manipulation functions. On the other hand, it eclectically combines features and purposes of the C language and many command or scripting languages. For such reasons, Perl looks rather odd on first sight. But once you have learned Perl, you will be able to write programs in Perl much faster than in most other languages. This makes Perl especially suitable for writing programs which are used once only.
-
-
Python
-
University of Toronto ☛ Notes about reading messages with the Python email packages
I have a long standing personal program to display MIME formatted email messages in the terminal in a sensible way (it was mentioned in this old entry on my email tools and its comments). For a long time this was a Python 2 program, using the Python 2 version of the email package. Recently, I moved this program to Python 3 as part of my sudden enthusiasm for Python 3 conversions, using the Python 3 version of email and its sub-packages. In the process I have wound up with some notes and opinions on practical use of the Python 3 email packages.
-
-
Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh
-
James Cherti ☛ A Shell Script that Automates XFCE Desktop Configuration
The jc-xfce-settings project provides the jc-xfce-settings.sh script, which holds James Cherti’s settings to customize the XFCE desktop environment, including window management, notifications, desktop behavior, keyboard settings, and more, to enhance the user experience.
-
James Cherti ☛ A Shell Script that Configures the GNOME Desktop Programmatically
The jc-gnome-settings repository provides the jc-gnome-settings.sh script, which holds James Cherti’s settings to customize the GNOME desktop environment, including window management, notifications, desktop behavior, keyboard settings, and more, to enhance the user experience.
-