I tried (Doom) Emacs, but I switched back to (Neo)Vim

Published by Paul at 2022-11-24 11:17:15 EET, last updated at 2022-11-26

+             _/  \    _(\(o
+             /     \  /  _  ^^^o
+            /   !   \/  ! '!!!v'
+           !  !  \ _' ( \____
+           ! . \ _!\   \===^\)
+Art by      \ \_!  / __!
+ Gunnar Z.   \!   /    \    <--- Emacs is a giant dragon
+       (\_      _/   _\ )
+        \ ^^--^^ __-^ /(__ 
+         ^^----^^    "^--v'
+

As a long-lasting user of Vim (and NeoVim), I always wondered what GNU Emacs is really about, so I decided to try it. I didn't try vanilla GNU Emacs, but Doom Emacs. I chose Doom Emacs as it is a neat distribution of Emacs with Evil mode enabled by default. Evil mode allows Vi(m) key bindings (so to speak, it's emulating Vim within Emacs), and I am pretty sure I won't be ready to give up all the muscle memory I have built over more than a decade.

+GNU Emacs
+Doom Emacs
+

I used Doom Emacs for around two months. Still, ultimately I decided to switch back to NeoVim as my primary editor and IDE and Vim (usually pre-installed on Linux-based systems) and Nvi (usually pre-installed on *BSD systems) as my "always available editor" for quick edits. (It is worth mentioning that I don't have a high opinion on whether Vim or NeoVim is the better editor, I prefer NeoVim as it comes with better defaults out of the box, but there is no real blocker to use Vim instead).

+Vim
+NeoVim
+

So why did I switch back to the Vi-family?

Emacs is a giant dragon

Emacs feels like a giant dragon as it is much more than an editor or an integrated development environment. Emacs is a whole platform on its own. There's an E-Mail client, an IRC client, or even games you can run within Emacs. And you can also change Emacs within Emacs using its own Lisp dialect, Emacs Lisp (Emacs is programmed in Emacs Lisp). Therefore, Emacs is also its own programming language. You can change every aspect of Emacs within Emacs itself. People jokingly state Emacs is an operating system and that you should directly use it as the init 1 process (if you don't know what the init 1 process is: Under UNIX and similar operating systems, it's the very first userland processed launched. That's usually systemd on Linux-based systems, launchd on macOS, or any other init script or init system used by the OS)!

In many aspects, Emacs is like shooting at everything with a bazooka! However, I prefer it simple. I only wanted Emacs to be a good editor (which it is, too), but there's too much other stuff in Emacs that I don't need to care about! Vim and NeoVim do one thing excellent: Being great text editors and, when loaded with plugins, decent IDEs, too.

Magit love

I almost fell in love with Magit, an integrated Git client for Emacs. But I think the best way to interact with Git is to use the git command line directly. I don't worry about typing out all the commands, as the most commonly used commands are in my shell history. Other useful Git programs I use frequently are bit and tig. Also, get a mechanical keyboard that makes hammering whole commands into the terminal even more enjoyable.

+Magit
+Tig
+

Magit is pretty neat for basic Git operations, but I found myself searching the internet for the correct sub-commands to do the things I wanted to do in Git. Mainly, the way how branches are managed is confusing. Often, I fell back to the command line to fix up the mess I produced with Magit (e.g. accidentally pushing to the wrong remote branch, so I found myself fixing things manually on the terminal with the git command with forced pushes....). Magit is hotkey driven, and common commands are quickly explorable through built-in hotkey menus. Still, I found it challenging to navigate to more advanced Git sub-commands that way which was much easier accomplished by using the git command directly.

Graphical UI

If there is one thing I envy about Emacs is that it's a graphical program, whereas the Vi-family of editors are purely terminal-based. I see the benefits of being a graphical program as this enables the use of multiple fonts simultaneously to embed pictures and graphs (that would be neat as a Markdown preview, for example). There's also GVim (Vim with GTK UI), but that's more of an afterthought.

There are now graphical front-end clients for NeoVim, but I still need to dig into them. Let me know your experience if you have one. Luckily, I don't rely on something graphical in my text editor, but it would improve how the editor looks and feels. UTF8 can already do a lot in the terminal, and terminal emulators also allow you to use TrueType fonts. Still, you will always be limited to one TTF font for the whole terminal, and it isn't possible to have, for example, a different font for headings, paragraphs, etc... you get the idea. TTF+UTF8 can't beat authentic graphics.

Scripting it

It is possible to customize every aspect of Emacs through Emacs Lisp. I have done some Elk Scheme programming in the past (a dialect of Lisp), but that was a long time ago, and I am not willing to dive here again to customize my environment. I would instead take the pragmatic approach and script what I need in VimScript (a terrible language, but it gets the job done!). I watched Damian Conway's VimScript course on O'Reilly Safari Books Online, which I greatly recommend. Yes, VimScript feels clunky, funky and weird and is far less elegant than Lisp, but it gets its job done - in most cases! (That reminds me that the Vim team has announced a new major version of VimScript with improvements and language changes made - I haven't gotten to it yet - but I assume that VimScript will always stay VimScript).

+Emacs Lisp
+Elk Scheme
+VimScript
+Scripting Vim by Damian Conway
+

NeoVim is also programmable with Lua, which seems to be a step up and Vim comes with a Perl plugin API (which was removed from NeoVim, but that is a different story - why would someone remove the most potent mature text manipulation programming language from one of the most powerful text editors?).

+NeoVim Lua API
+

One example is my workflow of how I compose my blog articles (e.g. this one you are currently reading): I am writing everything in NeoVim, but I also want to have every paragraph checked against Grammarly (as English is not my first language). So I write a whole paragraph, then I select the entire paragraph via visual selection with SHIFT+v, and then I press ,y to yank the paragraph to the systems clipboard, then I paste the paragraph to Grammarly's browser window with CTRL+v, let Grammarly suggest the improvements, and then I copy the result back with CTRL+c to the system clipboard and in NeoVim I type ,i to insert the result back overriding the old paragraph (which is still selected in visual mode) with the new content. That all sounds a bit complicated, but it's surprisingly natural and efficient.

To come back to the example, for the clipboard integration, I use this small VimScript snippet, and I didn't have to dig into any Lisp or Perl for this:

+" Clipboard
+vnoremap ,y !pbcopy<CR>ugv
+vnoremap ,i !pbpaste<CR>
+nmap ,i !wpbpaste<CR>
+

That's only a very few lines and does precisely what I want. It's quick and dirty but get's the job done! If VimScript becomes too cumbersome, I can use Lua for NeoVim scripting.

The famous Emacs Org mode

Org-mode is an Emacs mode for keeping notes, authoring documents, computational notebooks, literate programming, maintaining to-do lists, planning projects, and more — in a fast and effective plain-text system. There's even a dedicated website for it:

+https://orgmode.org/
+

In short, Org-mode is an "interactive markup language" that helps you organize everything mentioned above. I rarely touched the surface during my two-month experiment with Emacs, and I am impressed by it, so I see the benefits of having that. But it's not for me.

I use "Dead Tree Mode" to organize my work and notes. Dead tree? Yeah, I use an actual pen and a real paper journal (Leuchtturm or a Moleskine and a set of coloured 0.5 Muji Pens are excellent choices). That's far more immersive and flexible than a computer program can ever be. Yes, some automation and interaction with the computer (like calendar scheduling etc.) are missing. Still, an actual paper journal forces you to stay simple and focus on the actual work rather than tinkering with your computer program. (But I could not resist, and I wrote a VimScript which parses a table of contents page in Markdown format of my scanned paper journals, and NeoVim allows me to select a topic so that the corresponding PDF scan on the right journal page gets opened in an external PDF viewer (the PDF viewer is zathura, it uses Vi-keybindings, of course) :-). (See the appendix of this blog post for that script).

+Zathura
+

On the road, I also write some of my notes in Markdown format to NextCloud Notes, which is editable from my phone and via NeoVim on my computers. Markdown is much less powerful than Org-mode, but I prefer it the simple way. There's a neat terminal application, ranger, which I use to browse my NextCloud Notes when they are synced to a local folder on my machine. ranger is a file manager inspired by Vim and therefore makes use of Vim keybindings and it feels just natural to me.

+Ranger - A Vim inspired file manager
+

Did I mention that I also use my zsh (my default shell) and my tmux (terminal multiplexer) in Vi-mode?

+Z shell
+tmux terminal multiplexer
+

Seeking simplicity

I am not ready to dive deep into the whole world of Emacs. I prefer small and simple tools as opposed to complex tools. Emacs comes with many features out of the box, whereas in Vim/NeoVim, you would need to install many plugins to replicate some of the behaviour. Yes, I need to invest time managing all the Vim/NeoVim plugins I use, but I feel more in control compared to Doom Emacs, where a framework around vanilla Emacs manages all the plugins. I could use vanilla Emacs and manage all my plugins the vanilla way, but for me, it's not worth the effort to learn and dive into that as all that I want to do I can already do with Vim/NeoVim.

I am not saying that Vim/NeoVim are simple programs, but they are much simpler than Emacs with much smaller footprints; furthermore, they appear to be more straightforward as I am used to them. I only need Vim/NeoVim to be an editor, an IDE (through some plugins), and nothing more.

Conclusion

I understand the Emacs users now. Emacs is an incredibly powerful platform for almost everything, not just text editing. With Emacs, you can do nearly everything (Writing, editing, programming, calendar scheduling and note taking, Jira integration, playing games, listening to music, reading/writing emails, browsing the web, using as a calculator, generating HTML pages, configuring interactive menus, jumping around between every feature and every file within one single session, chat on IRC, surf the Gopherspace, ... the options are endless....). If you want to have one piece of software which rules it all and you are happy to invest a large part of your time in your platform: Pick Emacs, and over time Emacs will become "your" Emacs, customized to your own needs and change the way it works, which makes the Emacs users stick even more to it.

Vim/NeoVim also comes with a very high degree of customization options, but to a lesser extreme than Emacs (but still, a much higher degree than most other editors out there). If you want the best text editor in the world, which can also be tweaked to be a decent IDE, you are only looking for: Pick Vim or NeoVim! You would also need to invest a lot of time in learning, tweaking and customizing Vim/NeoVim, but that's a little more straightforward, and the result is much more lightweight once you get used to the "Vi way of doing things" you never would want to change back. I haven't tried the Emacs vanilla keystrokes, but they are terrible (that's probably one of the reasons why Doom Emacs uses Vim keybindings by default).

Update: One reader recommended to have a look at NvChad. NvChad is a NeoVim config written in Lua aiming to provide a base configuration with very beautiful UI and blazing fast startuptime (around 0.02 secs ~ 0.07 secs). They tweak UI plugins such as telescope, nvim-tree, bufferline etc well to provide an aesthetic UI experience. That sounds interesting!

+https://github.com/NvChad/NvChad
+

E-Mail your comments to paul at buetow dot org! :-)

Appendix

This is the VimScript I mentioned earlier, which parses a table of contents index of my scanned paper journals and opens the corresponding PDF at the right page in zathura:

+function! ReadJournalPageNumber()
+    let page = expand("<cword>")
+    if page !~# '^\d\+$'
+        for str in split(getline("."), "[ ,]")
+            if str =~# '^\d\+$'
+                let page = str
+                break
+            end
+        endfor
+    endif
+    return page
+endfunction
+
+function! ReadJournalMeta()
+    normal! mj
+
+    1/MetaFilePath:/
+    normal! 3w
+    let s:metaFilePath = expand("<cWORD>")
+    echom s:metaFilePath
+
+    1/MetaOffset:/
+    normal! 3w
+    let s:metaOffset = expand("<cword>")
+    echom s:metaOffset
+
+    1/MetaPageAtOffset:/
+    normal! 3w
+    let s:metaPageAtOffset = expand("<cword>")
+    echom s:metaPageAtOffset
+
+    1/MetaPagesPerScan:/
+    normal! 3w
+    let s:metaPagesPerScan = expand("<cword>")
+    echom s:metaPagesPerScan
+
+    normal! `j
+endfunction
+
+function! GetPdfPage(page)
+    return s:metaOffset + (a:page - s:metaPageAtOffset) / s:metaPagesPerScan
+endfunction
+
+function! OpenJournalPage()
+    let page = ReadJournalPageNumber()
+    if page !~# '^\d\+$'
+        echoerr "Could not identify Journal page number"
+    end
+    call ReadJournalMeta()
+    let pdfPage = GetPdfPage(page)
+    echon "Location is " . s:metaFilePath . ":" . pdfPage
+    call system("zathura --mode fullscreen -P " . pdfPage . " " . s:metaFilePath)
+    " call system("evince -p " . pdfPage . " " . s:metaFilePath)
+endfunction
+
+nmap ,j :call OpenJournalPage()<CR>
+

- 1c1 -< -rw-r--r--. 1 paul paul 13433 Oct 28 11:02 ../foo.zone-content/gemtext/gemfeed/2022-10-30-installing-dtail-on-openbsd.html ---- -> -rw-r--r--. 1 paul paul 13437 Oct 28 11:05 ../foo.zone-content/gemtext/gemfeed/2022-10-30-installing-dtail-on-openbsd.html -

Installing DTail on OpenBSD

Published by Paul at 2022-10-28

Installing DTail on OpenBSD

Published by Paul at 2022-10-30 11:03:19 EET

        ,_---~~~~~----._
  _,,_,*^____      _____``*g*\"*,
@@ -39,7 +179,7 @@
   |                           |       A       ;
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|~~~,--,-/ \---,-/|~~,~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                            _|\,'. /|      /|   `/|-.
-                       \.'    /|      ,            ;.
+                       \`.'    /|      ,            `;.
                       ,'\   A     A         A   A _ /| `.;
                     ,/  _              A       _  / _   /|  ;
                    /\  / \   ,  ,           A  /    /     `/|
@@ -52,11 +192,11 @@
              /  |<--.__,->|       |  | .    `.        >  >    /   (
             /_,' \\  ^  /  \     /  /   `.    >--            /^\   |
                   \\___/    \   /  /      \__'     \   \   \/   \  |
-                   .   |/          ,  ,                  /\    \  )
+                   `.   |/          ,  ,                  /`\    \  )
                      \  '  |/    ,       V    \          /        `-\
  OpenBSD Puffy --->   `|/  '  V      V           \    \.'            \_
                        '`-.       V       V        \./'\
-                           |/-.      \ /   \ /,---\         kat
+                           `|/-.      \ /   \ /,---`\         kat
                             /   `._____V_____V'
                                        '     '

After a bad night's sleep

Published by Paul at 2022-09-30, last updated 2022-10-12

Published by Paul at 2022-09-30 09:53:23 EEST, last updated at 2022-10-12

                z
                 z
                  Z
        .--.  Z Z
       / _(c\   .-.     __
-     | / /  '-;   \'-'  \______
+     | / /  '-;   \'-'`  `\______
      \_\/'/ __/ )  /  )   |      \--,
-     | \""__-/ .'--/   /--------\  \
+     | \`""`__-/ .'--/   /--------\  \
       \\`  ///-\/   /   /---;-.    '-'
 jgs                (________\  \
                              '-'
@@ -392,7 +532,7 @@ jgs                (________\  \
         
             
                 Gemtexter 1.1.0 - Let's Gemtext again
-Published by Paul at 2022-08-27
+Published by Paul at 2022-08-27 20:25:57 EEST
  -=[ typewriter ]=-  1/98
 
@@ -402,7 +542,7 @@ jgs                (________\  \
       |:::::::::|
       |:::::::[]|
       |o=======.|
- jgs  """""""""
+ jgs  `"""""""""`
 


 I am proud to announce that I've released Gemtexter version 1.1.0. What is Gemtexter? It's my static site generator written in GNU Bash:
 Gemtexter - One Bash script to rule it all

@@ -468,7 +608,7 @@ check_dependencies () {
         
             
                 Let's Encrypt with OpenBSD and Rex
-Published by Paul at 2022-07-30
+Published by Paul at 2022-07-30 14:14:31 EEST
                                                 /    _    \
   The Hebern Machine                            \ ." ". /
@@ -1075,7 +1215,7 @@ rex commons
         
             
                 Sweating the small stuff - Tiny projects of mine
-Published by Paul at 2022-06-15, last updated at 2022-06-18
+Published by Paul at 2022-06-15 10:47:44 GMT, last updated at 2022-06-18
           _
         /_/_      .'''.
@@ -1316,12 +1456,12 @@ v = 008 [v = p*c*(s != c ? 2 : 1)] Total logical CPUs
         
             
                 Perl is still a great choice
-Published by Paul at 2022-05-27, Comic source: XKCD
+Published by Paul at 2022-05-27, last updated at 2022-12-10 Comic source: XKCD
 

-Perl (the Practical Extraction and Report Language) is a battle-tested, mature, multi-paradigm dynamic programming language. Note that it's not called PERL, neither P.E.R.L. nor Pearl. "Perl" is the name of the language and "perl" the name of the interpreter or the interpreter command.
+Perl (the Practical Extraction and Report Language) is a battle-tested, mature, multi-paradigm dynamic programming language. Note that it's not called PERL, neither P.E.R.L. nor Pearl. "Perl" is the name of the language and perl the name of the interpreter or the interpreter command.
 Unfortunately (it makes me sad), Perl's popularity has been declining over the last years as Google trends shows:
 

-So why is that? Once the de-facto standard super-glue language for the web nowadays seems to have a bad repetition. Often, people state:
+So why is that? Once the de-facto standard super-glue language for the web nowadays seems to have a bad reputation. Often, people state:
 
 Perl is a write-only language. Nobody can read Perl code.
 Perl? Isn't it abandoned? It's still at version 5!
@@ -1360,13 +1500,15 @@ v = 008 [v = p*c*(s != c ? 2 : 1)] Total logical CPUs
 Perl feature pragmas

 The OpenBSD Operating System

 Why does OpenBSD still include Perl in its base installation?

-The renaming of Perl 6 to Raku has now opened the door for a future Perl 7. As far as I understand, Perl 7 will be Perl 5 but with modern features enabled by default (e.g. pragmas "use strict; use warnings; use signatures;" and so on. Also, the hope is that a Perl 7 with modern standards will attract more beginners. There aren't many Perl jobs out there nowadays. That's mostly due to Perl's bad (bad for no real reasons) repetition.
+The renaming of Perl 6 to Raku has now opened the door for a future Perl 7. As far as I understand, Perl 7 will be Perl 5 but with modern features enabled by default (e.g. pragmas use strict;,  use warnings;, use signatures; and so on. Also, the hope is that a Perl 7 with modern standards will attract more beginners. There aren't many Perl jobs out there nowadays. That's mostly due to Perl's bad (bad for no real reasons) reputation.
+Update 2022-12-10: A reader pointed out, that use v5.36; already turns strict, warnings and signatures pragmas automatically on! 
 Announcing Perl 7

-What happened to Perl 7? (maybe have to use "use v7;")

+What happened to Perl 7? (maybe have to use use v7;)

+Update 2022-12-10: A reader pointed out, that Perl 7 needs to provide a big improvement to earn and keep the attention for a major version bump.
 Why use Perl as there are better alternatives?
 Here, common sense must be applied. I don't believe there is anything like "the perfect" programming language. Everyone has got his preferred (or a set of preferred) programming language to chose from. All programming languages come with their own set of strengths and weaknesses. These are the strengths making Perl shine, and you (technically) don't need to bother to look for "better" alternatives:
 
-Perl is better than Shell/awk/sed scripts. There's a point where shell scripts become fairly complex. The next step-up is to switch to Perl. There are many different versions of shells and awk and sed interpreters. Do you always know which versions (mawk, nawk, gawk, sed, gsed, ...) are currently installed? These commands aren't fully compatible to each other. However, there is only one Perl 5. Simply: Perl is faster, more powerful, more expressive than any shell script can ever be, and it is also extendible through CPAN. Perl can directly talk to databases, which shell scripts can't.
+Perl is better than Shell/AWK/SED scripts. There's a point where shell scripts become fairly complex. The next step-up is to switch to Perl. There are many different versions of shells and AWK and SED interpreters. Do you always know which versions (mawk, nawk, gawk, sed, gsed, grep, ggrep...) are currently installed? These commands aren't fully compatible to each other. However, there is only one Perl 5. Simply: Perl is faster, more powerful, more expressive than any shell script can ever be, and it is also extendible through CPAN. Perl can directly talk to databases, which shell scripts can't.
 Perl code tends to be compact so that it's much better suitable for "shell scripting" and quick "one-liners" than other languages. In my own experience: Ruby and Python code tends to blow up quickly. It doesn't mean that Ruby and Python are not suitable for this task, but I think Perl does much better.
 Perl 5 has proven itself for decades and is a very stable/robust language. It is a battle-tested and mature as something can ever become.
 Perl is the reference standard for regular expressions. Even so much that there is a PCRE library (Perl Compatible Regular Expressions) used by many other languages now. Perl fully integrates regular expression syntax into the language, which doesn't feel like an odd add-on like in most other languages.
@@ -1385,10 +1527,10 @@ v = 008 [v = p*c*(s != c ? 2 : 1)] Total logical CPUs
 It's possible to write large programs in Perl (make difficult things possible), but it might not be the best choice here. This also leads back to the clunky object system Perl has. You could write your projects in a procedural or functional style (Perl perfectly fits here), but OOP seems to be the gold standard for large projects nowadays. Functional programming requires a different mindset, and pure procedural programming lacks abstractions.
 Apply common sense. What is the skill set your team has? What's already widely used and supported at work? Which languages comes with the best modules for the things you want to work on? Maybe Python is the answer (better machine learning modules). Maybe Perl is the better choice (better Bioinformatic modules). Perhaps Ruby is already the de-facto standard at work and everyone knows at least a little Ruby (as it happened to be at my workplace) and Ruby is "good enough" for all the tasks already. But that's not a hindrance to throw in a Perl one-liner once in a while :P.
 
-Cor - A minimal object system for the Perl core - proposal

+Cor - Bringing modern OOP to the Perl Core

 Why all the sigils? It looks like an exploding ASCII factory!!
-The sigils $ @ % & (where Perl is famously known for) serve a purpose. They seem confusing at first, but they actually make the code better readable. $scalar is a scalar variable (holding a single value), @array is an array (holding a list of values), %hash holds a list of key-value pairs and &sub is for subroutines. A given variable $ref can also hold reference to something. @$arrayref dereferences a reference to an array, %$hashref to a hash, $$scalarref to a scalar, &$subref dereferences a referene to a subroutine, etc. That can be encapsulated as deep as you want. (This paragraph only scratched the surface here of what Perl can do, and there is a lot of syntactic sugar not mentioned here).
-In most other programming languages, you won't know instantly what's the "basic type" of a given variable without looking at the variable declaration or the variable name (If named intelligently, e.g. a variable name containing a list of socks is "sock_list"). Even Ruby makes some use of sigils (@ @@ an $), but that's for a different purpose than in Perl (in Ruby it is about object scope, class scope and global scope). Raku uses all the sigils Perl uses plus an additional bunch of twigils, e.g. $.foo for a scalar object variable with public accessors, $!foo for a private scalar object variable, @.foo, @!foo, %.foo, %!foo and so on. Sigils (and twigils) are very convenient once you get used to them. Don't let them scare you off - they are there to help you!
+The sigils $ @ % & (where Perl is famously known for) serve a purpose. They seem confusing at first, but they actually make the code better readable. $scalar is a scalar variable (holding a single value), @array is an array (holding a list of values), %hash holds a list of key-value pairs and &sub is for subroutines. A given variable $ref can also hold reference to something. @$arrayref dereferences a reference to an array, %$hashref to a hash, $$scalarref to a scalar, &$subref dereferences a referene to a subroutine, etc. That can be encapsulated as deep as you want. (This paragraph only scratched the surface here of what Perl can do, and there is a lot of syntactic sugar not mentioned here).
+In most other programming languages, you won't know instantly what's the "basic type" of a given variable without looking at the variable declaration or the variable name (If named intelligently, e.g. a variable name containing a list of socks is "sock_list"). Even Ruby makes some use of sigils (@, @@ and $), but that's for a different purpose than in Perl (in Ruby it is about object scope, class scope and global scope). Raku uses all the sigils Perl uses plus an additional bunch of twigils, e.g. $.foo for a scalar object variable with public accessors, $!foo for a private scalar object variable, @.foo, @!foo, %.foo, %!foo and so on. Sigils (and twigils) are very convenient once you get used to them. Don't let them scare you off - they are there to help you!
 https://www.perl.com/article/on-sigils/

 Where do I personally still use perl?
 
@@ -1417,7 +1559,7 @@ v = 008 [v = p*c*(s != c ? 2 : 1)] Total logical CPUs
         
             
                 Creative universe
-Published by Paul at 2022-04-10, last updated at 2022-04-18
+Published by Paul at 2022-04-10 12:09:11 GMT, last updated at 2022-04-18
   .              +   .                .   . .     .  .
                    .                    .       .     *
@@ -1524,13 +1666,13 @@ learn () {
         
             
                 The release of DTail 4.0.0
-Published by Paul at 2022-03-06
+Published by Paul at 2022-03-06 20:11:39 GMT
                                ,_---~~~~~----._
                         _,,_,*^____      _____``*g*\"*,
   ____ _____     _ _   / __/ /'     ^.  /      \ ^@q   f
  |  _ \_   _|_ _(_) |   @f | @))    |  | @))   l  0 _/
- | | | || |/ _ | | |  \/   \~____ / __ \_____/    \
+ | | | || |/ _` | | |  \`/   \~____ / __ \_____/    \
  | |_| || | (_| | | |   |           _l__l_           I
  |____/ |_|\__,_|_|_|   }          [______]           I
                         ]            | | |            |
@@ -1776,7 +1918,7 @@ exec /usr/local/bin/dtailhealth --server localhost:2222
         
             
                 Computer operating systems I use(d)
-Published by Paul at 2022-02-04, updated 2022-02-18
+Published by Paul at 2022-02-04 11:58:22 GMT, updated 2022-02-18
                /(        )`
               \ \___   / |
@@ -1784,13 +1926,13 @@ exec /usr/local/bin/dtailhealth --server localhost:2222
              (/\/ \ \   /\
              / /   | `    \
              O O   ) /    |
-             -^--'<     '
+             `-^--'`<     '
             (_.)  _  )   /
-             .___/    /
+             `.___/`    /
                `-----' /
   <----.     __ / __   \
   <----|====O)))==) \) /====
-  <----'    --' .__,' \
+  <----'    `--' `.__,' \
                |        |
                 \       /
            ______( (_  / \______
@@ -1942,7 +2084,7 @@ GNU/kFreeBSD rhea.buetow.org 8.0-RELEASE-p5 FreeBSD 8.0-RELEASE-p5 #2: Sat Nov 2
         
             
                 Welcome to the foo.zone
-Published by Paul at 2022-01-23
+Published by Paul at 2022-01-23 18:42:04 GMT
    __                                  
  / _| ___   ___   _______  _ __   ___ 
@@ -1989,7 +2131,7 @@ GNU/kFreeBSD rhea.buetow.org 8.0-RELEASE-p5 FreeBSD 8.0-RELEASE-p5 #2: Sat Nov 2
         
             
                 Bash Golf Part 2
-Published by Paul at 2022-01-01, last updated at 2022-01-05
+Published by Paul at 2022-01-02 01:36:15 GMT, last updated at 2022-01-05
  
     '\       '\                   .  .                |>18>>
@@ -2401,7 +2543,7 @@ PAUL:X:1000:1000:PAUL BUETOW:/HOME/PAUL:/BIN/BASH
         
             
                 How to stay sane as a DevOps person 
-Published by Paul at 2021-12-26, last updated at 2022-01-12
+Published by Paul at 2021-12-26 14:02:02 GMT, last updated at 2022-01-12
                                       )
                              )      ((     (
@@ -2412,7 +2554,7 @@ PAUL:X:1000:1000:PAUL BUETOW:/HOME/PAUL:/BIN/BASH
         | //  : | -__   ~__ o)____)),__ - '> >-  >
         | //  : |- \_ \ -\_\ -\ \ \ ~\_  \ ->> - ,  >>
         | //  : |_~_\ -\__\ \~'\ \ \, \__ . -<-  >>
-        -----._|   -__-- - ~~ --  --~> >
+        `-----._| `  -__`-- - ~~ -- ` --~> >
          _/___\_    //)_`//  | ||]
    _____[_______]_[~~-_ (.L_/  ||
   [____________________]' `\_,/'/
@@ -2493,7 +2635,7 @@ PAUL:X:1000:1000:PAUL BUETOW:/HOME/PAUL:/BIN/BASH
         
             
                 Bash Golf Part 1
-Published by Paul at 2021-11-29, last updated at 2022-01-05
+Published by Paul at 2021-11-29 16:06:14 GMT, last updated at 2022-01-05
  
      '\                   .  .                        |>18>>
@@ -2877,7 +3019,7 @@ bash: line 1: 1/10.0 : syntax error: invalid arithmetic operator (error token is
         
             
                 Defensive DevOps
-Published by Paul at 2021-10-22
+Published by Paul at 2021-10-22 10:02:46 GMT
                                                              c=====e
                                                                H
@@ -2956,7 +3098,7 @@ bash: line 1: 1/10.0 : syntax error: invalid arithmetic operator (error token is
         
             
                 Keep it simple and stupid
-Published by Paul at 2021-09-12, last updated at 2022-04-21
+Published by Paul at 2021-09-12 09:39:20 GMT, last updated at 2022-04-21
    _______________                        |*\_/*|_______
   |  ___________  |     .-.     .-.      ||_/-\_|______  |
@@ -3027,7 +3169,7 @@ bash: line 1: 1/10.0 : syntax error: invalid arithmetic operator (error token is
         
             
                 On being Pedantic about Open-Source
-Published by Paul at 2021-08-01
+Published by Paul at 2021-08-01 10:37:58 GMT
                                             __
                                _____....--' .'
@@ -3107,7 +3249,7 @@ bash: line 1: 1/10.0 : syntax error: invalid arithmetic operator (error token is
         
             
                 The Well-Grounded Rubyist
-Published by Paul at 2021-07-04
+Published by Paul at 2021-07-04 12:51:23 GMT
 When I was a Linux System Administrator, I have been programming in Perl for years. I still maintain some personal Perl programming projects (e.g. Xerl, guprecords, Loadbars). After switching jobs a couple of years ago (becoming a Site Reliability Engineer), I found Ruby (and some Python) widely used there. As I wanted to do something new, I decided to give Ruby a go.
 You should learn or try out one new programming language once yearly anyway. If you end up not using the new language, that's not a problem. You will learn new techniques with each new programming language and this also helps you to improve your overall programming skills even for other languages. Also, having some background in a similar programming language makes it reasonably easy to get started. Besides that, learning a new programming language is kick-a** fun!
 

@@ -3188,7 +3330,7 @@ Hello World
         
             
                 Gemtexter - One Bash script to rule it all
-Published by Paul at 2021-06-05
+Published by Paul at 2021-06-05 21:03:32 GMT
                                                                 o .,<>., o
                                                                |\/\/\/\/|
@@ -3210,23 +3352,23 @@ Hello World
                                                     _-'    |\  .        |
                                   _..--..   .  /"---\      | ` |      . |
           -=====================,' _     \=(*#(7.#####()   |  `/_..   , (
-                      _.-''`';'-''-) ,.  \ '  '+/// |   .'/   \  `-.) \
-                    ,'  _.-  ((    -'  ._\    ` \_/_.'  )    /-._  ) |
+                      _.-''``';'-''-) ,.  \ '  '+/// |   .'/   \  ``-.) \
+                    ,'  _.-  ((    `-'  `._\    `` \_/_.'  )    /`-._  ) |
                   ,'\ ,'  _.'.`:-.    \.-'                 /   <_L   )"  |
-                _/   ._,' ,');  -''                    |     L  /    /
+                _/   `._,' ,')`;  `-'`'                    |     L  /    /
                / `.   ,' ,|_/ / \                          (    <_-'     \
-               \ / ./  '  / /,' \                        /|         `. |
-               )\   /._   ,'._.-\                       |)            \'
-              /  .'    )-'.-,' )__)                      |\            |
-             : /. .._(--.':':/ \                      ) \             \
+               \ / `./  '  / /,' \                        /|`         `. |
+               )\   /`._   ,'`._.-\                       |)            \'
+              /  `.'    )-'.-,' )__)                      |\            `|
+             : /`. `.._(--.`':`':/ \                      ) \             \
              |::::\     ,'/::;-))  /                      ( )`.            |
              ||:::::  . .::':  :`-(                       |/    .          |
              ||::::|  . :|  |==[]=:                       .        -       \
              |||:::|  : ||  :  |  |                      /\           `     |
  ___ ___     '|;:::|  | |'   \=[]=|                     /  \                \
-|   /_  ||`|||:::::  | ;    | |  |                     \_.'\_               -.
-:   \_`[]--[]|::::'\_;'     )-'..._                 .-'\`::  .              \
- \___.>''-.||:.__,'     SSt |_______>              <_____:::.         . . \  _/
+|   /_  ||``|||:::::  | ;    | |  |                     \_.'\_               `-.
+:   \_``[]--[]|::::'\_;'     )-'..`._                 .-'\``:: ` .              \
+ \___.>`''-.||:.__,'     SSt |_______`>              <_____:::.         . . \  _/
                                                            `+a:f:......jrei'''
 


 You might have read my previous blog post about entering the Geminispace, where I pointed out the benefits of having and maintaining an internet presence there. This whole site (the blog and all other pages) is composed in the Gemtext markup language. 
@@ -3327,7 +3469,7 @@ assert::equals "$(generate::make_link md "$gemtext")" \
         
             
                 Personal Bash coding style guide
-Published by Paul at 2021-05-16
+Published by Paul at 2021-05-16 16:51:57 GMT
     .---------------------------.
   /,--..---..---..---..---..--. `.
@@ -3635,7 +3777,7 @@ fi
         
             
                 Welcome to the Geminispace
-Published by Paul at 2021-04-24, last updated at 2021-06-18, ASCII Art by Andy Hood
+Published by Paul at 2021-04-24 21:28:41 GMT, last updated at 2021-06-18, ASCII Art by Andy Hood
 Have you reached this article already via Gemini? It requires a Gemini client; web browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc., don't support the Gemini protocol. The Gemini address of this site (or the address of this capsule as people say in Geminispace) is:
 https://foo.zone

 However, if you still use HTTP, you are just surfing the fallback HTML version of this capsule. In that case, I suggest reading on what this is all about :-).
@@ -3652,7 +3794,7 @@ fi
  |Gemini|
  |      |
  |______|
-  '-'-   .
+  '-`'-`   .
   / . \'\ . .'
  ''( .'\.' ' .;'
 '.;.;' ;'.;' ..;;' AsH
@@ -3705,7 +3847,7 @@ fi
         
             
                 DTail - The distributed log tail program
-Published by Paul at 2021-04-22, last updated at 2021-04-26
+Published by Paul at 2021-04-22 21:28:41 GMT, last updated at 2021-04-26
 

 This article first appeared at the Mimecast Engineering Blog but I made it available here in my personal internet site too.
 Original Mimecast Engineering Blog post at Medium

@@ -3786,15 +3928,15 @@ dtail –servers serverlist.txt –files ‘/var/log/*.log’ –regex ‘(?i:er
         
             
                 Realistic load testing with I/O Riot for Linux
-Published by Paul at 2018-06-01, last updated at 2021-05-08
+Published by Paul at 2018-06-01 16:50:29 GMT, last updated at 2021-05-08
         .---.
       /     \
       \.@-@./
-      /\_/\
+      /`\_/`\
      //  _  \\
     | \     )|_
-   /\_>  <_/ \
+   /`\_`>  <_/ \
 jgs\__/'---'\__/
 


 Foreword
@@ -3925,7 +4067,7 @@ Total time: 1213.00s
         
             
                 Object oriented programming with ANSI C
-Published by Paul at 2016-11-20, updated 2022-01-29
+Published by Paul at 2016-11-21 00:10:57 GMT, updated 2022-01-29
    ___   ___  ____        ____ 
  / _ \ / _ \|  _ \      / ___|
@@ -4017,7 +4159,7 @@ mult.calculate(mult,a,b));
         
             
                 Spinning up my own authoritative DNS servers
-Published by Paul at 2016-05-22
+Published by Paul at 2016-05-22 20:59:01 GMT
 Background
 Finally, I had time to deploy my authoritative DNS servers (master and slave) for my domains "buetow.org" and "buetow.zone". My domain name provider is Schlund Technologies. They allow their customers to edit the DNS records (BIND files) manually. And they also allow you to set your authoritative DNS servers for your domains. From now, I am making use of that option.
 Schlund Technologies

@@ -4242,7 +4384,7 @@ apply Service "dig6" {
         
             
                 Offsite backup with ZFS (Part 2)
-Published by Paul at 2016-04-16
+Published by Paul at 2016-04-17 00:43:42 GMT
   ________________
 |# :           : #|
@@ -4279,7 +4421,7 @@ apply Service "dig6" {
         
             
                 Jails and ZFS with Puppet on FreeBSD
-Published by Paul at 2016-04-09
+Published by Paul at 2016-04-09 20:29:47 GMT
              __     __
            (( \---/ ))
@@ -4658,7 +4800,7 @@ Notice: Finished catalog run in 206.09 seconds
         
             
                 Offsite backup with ZFS
-Published by Paul at 2016-04-03
+Published by Paul at 2016-04-04 00:43:42 GMT
   ________________
 |# :           : #|
@@ -4701,7 +4843,7 @@ Notice: Finished catalog run in 206.09 seconds
         
             
                 Run Debian on your phone with Debroid
-Published by Paul at 2015-12-05, last updated at 2021-05-16
+Published by Paul at 2015-12-05 18:12:57 CEST, last updated at 2021-05-16
   ____       _               _     _ 
 |  _ \  ___| |__  _ __ ___ (_) __| |
@@ -4865,7 +5007,7 @@ exit
         
             
                 The fibonacci.pl.raku.c Polyglot
-Published by Paul at 2014-03-24, last updated 2022-04-23
+Published by Paul at 2014-03-24 23:32:53 CEST, last updated at 2022-04-23
 In computing, a polyglot is a computer program or script written in a valid form of multiple programming languages, which performs the same operations or output independent of the programming language used to compile or interpret it.
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyglot_(computing)

 The Fibonacci numbers
@@ -5007,7 +5149,7 @@ fib(10) = 55
         
             
                 Perl Daemon (Service Framework)
-Published by Paul at 2011-05-07, last updated at 2021-05-07
+Published by Paul at 2011-05-08 00:26:02 CEST, last updated at 2021-05-07
     a'!   _,,_ a'!   _,,_     a'!   _,,_
      \\_/    \  \\_/    \      \\_/    \.-,
@@ -5153,7 +5295,7 @@ sub do ($) {
         
             
                 The Fype Programming Language
-Published by Paul at 2010-05-09, last updated at 2021-05-05
+Published by Paul at 2010-05-09 14:48:29 CEST, last updated at 2021-05-05
        ____                                      _        __       
      / / _|_   _ _ __   ___    _   _  ___  __ _| |__    / _|_   _ 
@@ -5568,7 +5710,7 @@ BB
         
             
                 Lazy Evaluation with Standard ML
-Published by Paul at 2010-05-07
+Published by Paul at 2010-05-07 10:17:59 CEST
  
       _____|~~\_____      _____________
@@ -5578,7 +5720,7 @@ BB
   _-    | )     /    |--|      |  |
  __-_______________ /__/_______|  |_________
 (                |----         |  |
- ---------------'--\\\\      .--'          -Glyde-
+ `---------------'--\\\\      .`--'          -Glyde-
                               `||||
 


 In contrast to Haskell, Standard SML does not use lazy evaluation by default but an eager evaluation. 
@@ -5668,7 +5810,7 @@ first 10 nat_pairs_not_null
         
             
                 Standard ML and Haskell
-Published by Paul at 2010-04-09
+Published by Paul at 2010-04-10 00:57:36 CEST
 I am currently looking into the functional programming language Standard ML (aka SML). The purpose is to refresh my functional programming skills and to learn something new too. Since I already knew a little Haskell, I could not help myself, and I also implemented the same exercises in Haskell.
 As you will see, SML and Haskell are very similar (at least when it comes to the basics). However, the syntax of Haskell is a bit more "advanced". Haskell utilizes fewer keywords (e.g. no val, end, fun, fn ...). Haskell also allows to write down the function types explicitly. What I have been missing in SML so far is the so-called pattern guards. Although this is a very superficial comparison for now, so far, I like Haskell more than SML. Nevertheless, I thought it would be fun to demonstrate a few simple functions of both languages to show off the similarities. 
 Haskell is also a "pure functional" programming language, whereas SML also makes explicit use of imperative concepts. I am by far not a specialist in either of these languages, but here are a few functions implemented in both SML and Haskell:
@@ -5822,7 +5964,7 @@ my_filter f l = foldr (make_filter_fn f) [] l
         
             
                 Using my Nokia N95 for fixing my MTA
-Published by Paul at 2008-12-29, last updated at 2021-12-01
+Published by Paul at 2008-12-29 11:10:41 CEST, last updated at 2021-12-01
  
            _
@@ -5868,7 +6010,7 @@ _jgs_\|//_\\|///_\V/_\|//__
         
             
                 Perl Poetry
-Published by Paul at 2008-06-26, last updated at 2021-05-04
+Published by Paul at 2008-06-26 23:43:51 CEST, last updated at 2021-05-04
   '\|/'                                  *
 -- * -----
@@ -5878,11 +6020,11 @@ _jgs_\|//_\\|///_\V/_\|//__
    :         (   (        .-''`'.
    .          \   \      /       \
    .           \    \   /         \
-                \    -'           '.
+                \    `-'           `'.
                  \    . '        /    `.
                   \  ( \  )     (     .')
    ,,   t          '. |  /       |     (
-  '|`_/^\___        '|  |'-..-'|   ( ()
+  '|``_/^\___        '|  |`'-..-'|   ( ()
 _~~|~/_|_|__/|~~~~~~~ |  / ~~~~~ |   | ~~~~~~~~
  -_  |L[|]L|/         | |\ MJP   )   )
                       ( |(       /  /|
diff --git a/gemfeed/index.html b/gemfeed/index.html
index d207473f..85277f2d 100644
--- a/gemfeed/index.html
+++ b/gemfeed/index.html
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@
 
 Gemfeed of foo.zone
 To be in the .zone!
+2022-11-24 - I tried (Doom) Emacs, but I switched back to (Neo)Vim

 2022-10-30 - Installing DTail on OpenBSD

 2022-09-30 - After a bad night's sleep

 2022-08-27 - Gemtexter 1.1.0 - Let's Gemtext again

-- 
cgit v1.2.3

Perl Poetry

Using my Nokia N95 for fixing my MTA

Standard ML and Haskell

Lazy Evaluation with Standard ML

The Fype Programming Language

Perl Daemon (Service Framework)

The fibonacci.pl.raku.c Polyglot

The Fibonacci numbers

Run Debian on your phone with Debroid

Offsite backup with ZFS

Jails and ZFS with Puppet on FreeBSD

Offsite backup with ZFS (Part 2)

Spinning up my own authoritative DNS servers

Background

Object oriented programming with ANSI C

Realistic load testing with I/O Riot for Linux

Foreword

DTail - The distributed log tail program

Welcome to the Geminispace

Personal Bash coding style guide

Gemtexter - One Bash script to rule it all

The Well-Grounded Rubyist

On being Pedantic about Open-Source

Keep it simple and stupid

Defensive DevOps

Bash Golf Part 1

How to stay sane as a DevOps person

Bash Golf Part 2

Welcome to the foo.zone

Computer operating systems I use(d)

The release of DTail 4.0.0

Creative universe

Perl is still a great choice

Why use Perl as there are better alternatives?

Why all the sigils? It looks like an exploding ASCII factory!!

Where do I personally still use perl?

Sweating the small stuff - Tiny projects of mine

Let's Encrypt with OpenBSD and Rex

Gemtexter 1.1.0 - Let's Gemtext again

After a bad night's sleep

Installing DTail on OpenBSD

I tried (Doom) Emacs, but I switched back to (Neo)Vim

Emacs is a giant dragon

Magit love

Graphical UI

Scripting it

The famous Emacs Org mode

Seeking simplicity

Conclusion

Appendix

I tried Doom Emacs, but I switched back to (Neo)Vim

Emacs is a monster

Magit love

Seeking simplicity

Scripting it

The famous Org mode

Conclusion

I tried (Doom) Emacs, but I switched back to (Neo)Vim

Emacs is a giant dragon

Magit love

Graphical UI

Scripting it

The famous Emacs Org mode

Seeking simplicity

Conclusion

Appendix

Installing DTail on OpenBSD

Installing DTail on OpenBSD

After a bad night's sleep

Gemtexter 1.1.0 - Let's Gemtext again

Let's Encrypt with OpenBSD and Rex

Sweating the small stuff - Tiny projects of mine

Perl is still a great choice

Why use Perl as there are better alternatives?

Why all the sigils? It looks like an exploding ASCII factory!!

Where do I personally still use perl?

Creative universe

The release of DTail 4.0.0

Computer operating systems I use(d)

Welcome to the foo.zone