Journal of An Open Sourcee

Setting up Vim for Clojure development notes

Wed, 16 May 2012 16:41:00 -0400

Started the process of getting jiggy with Clojure at work and didn’t like the idea of using Eclipse for my day to day work… so I started looking at how to make vim and clojure get along and came across a great post! Here are the distilled notes plus minor tweaks to get anyone out there trying to do the same thing going:

Download VimClojure (http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2501)
Download VimSlime (https://github.com/jpalardy/vim-slime)
Extract these files into your ~/.vim folder
Add the following lines to ~/.vimrc:
- ” Settings for VimClojure
- let vimclojure#HighlightBuiltins = 1
- let vimclojure#ParenRainbow = 1
- ” Send entire file to repl
- nmap <C-m> ggVG<C-c><C-c>
Start a repl session inside screen:
- screen -S clojure
- lein repl
Open a clojure file with vim and highlight the method you want to evaluate
Press ctrl + c twice
- For session name prompt, enter ‘clojure’ which is the name of the screen session
- For window name prompt, accept the default number displayed
The selected code should be evaluated in the screen session
Press ctrl + c, v to get prompt again

NOTES:

I chose to start a repl using lein but you can use whatever you’re familar with to get a repl started
I have lein inside a directory in my Dropbox as well as all of my vim files and plugins. I then created soft links to them in my $HOME directory which makes this whole thing very easy to access from different systems as long as Dropbox is installed :)

"Now my adopted state has chosen to turn its back on its tradition of welcoming immigrants, and of..."

Wed, 02 May 2012 10:58:20 -0400

““Now my adopted state has chosen to turn its back on its tradition of welcoming immigrants, and of tolerance and freedom to all its citizens, with a proposed amendment to the NC State Constitution no less, that hangs a great banner across the entrances to the state saying to a whole bunch of American citizens: You are not welcome here.””

- Bob Young

English: My Red Hat took me and the kids to the NC Museum of Art...

Tue, 01 May 2012 10:34:00 -0400

English: My Red Hat took me and the kids to the NC Museum of Art this last Sunday! It was perfect too as we got to see a lot of the exhibits and still managed to find time to eat at Lilly’s. Did you know that the entrance is free and the museum is sponsored by the State of North Carolina for our viewing and learning pleasure? Take that NYC and your extremely expensive entrance fees! :P

Português: Meu Red Hat me levou com minhas filhas até o NC Museum of Art este último domingo! Foi um dia mais que perfeito já que conseguimos ver um monte das exibições e ainda achamos um tempinho para comer na pizzaria Lilly’s. Você sabia que a entrada é completamente free e que o museo é patrocinado pelo Estado da Carolina do Norte para o nosso deleite? Toma NYC e seus preços de entrada exorbitantes! :P

How to import WordPress XML files

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 16:59:53 -0400

… or, how I brought an old python code back from the dead!

Inspired by Kenneth Reitz’s recent post and spurred by recent events, I decided to turn an old python code I wrote a while back into something that can be (hopefully) easier to get to than by sheer luck.

I’m talking about ChoppedPress, my script that let’s you split WordPress exported XML files into smaller files that can be easily imported into new WordPress installations. I’m sure that some of you have experienced the frustration of not being able to import this xml file due to size upload constraints on your host providers… One of my close friends who provides mostly support for WordPress gave me the idea a while back and that is how the script came about. Little did I know that other people have find it useful too, specially for migrating away from WordPress! As a matter of fact, I too used it when I moved to Tumblr, but that another story.

So this afternoon I took some time during my lunch break to create a repository and put together some very basic structure to give ChoppedPress a proper home (yay GitHub Pages!!!). For the first time I also uploaded something I created to PyPi… Sure, this may not be a big deal to some of you out there, but I can hardly contain my excitement. :)

Overall, I’m still enjoying a nice buzz from the experience. Obviously, I look forward to comments, suggestions and/or improvements to the code, but more than anything, I hope this will be useful to you too!

"If you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money. But if you hire..."

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 10:10:42 -0400

““If you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money. But if you hire people who believe what you believe, they’ll work for you with blood and sweat and tears.””

- Simon Sinek

I consider myself very lucky for having gotten to a point in my professional career where I can chose where I want to work, a place where I can try to make a difference, and more than anything, a place where I believe in what I do! Thanks my good friend Joe Baltimore for sharing this video today, a great way to kick off the weekend! Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action

Alternatives to NY Times' Book section

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 10:32:00 -0400

The NY Times’ restriction of 10 articles/month for non-subscribers, online viewers means I won’t be reading their Books section anymore. It sort of became a good habit for me and something I look forward to on Sunday mornings: as I drink my coffee and enjoy some peace and quietness as the kids are still asleep, I enjoy catching up with the latest books and reviews. This weekend ritual usually ends with a trip down to the public library with the whole family. Both of my kids are already checking out more books and movies than my wife and I together.

But back to this decision by the NY Times, I understand that a for profit establishment wants to, well, make money, and there’s nothing wrong with that for sure. But for this weekend, Books section only reader the options don’t make a lot of sense: pay $6 for the Sunday edition so I can read a small subset of it is a bit expensive, and I am not very sure how much it costs to get the online version.

Mad Props To The Pragmatic Programmers

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 00:01:29 -0400

Earlier this morning I received the following email from The Pragmatic Programmers:

Dear Og Maciel,

This is just to let you know that Pragmatic Guide to Git (eBook) has recently been updated. You own an electronic version of this book, and so you’ll be able to download this latest version. We have also sent it to Amazon.com for delivery to your kindle.

Changes in This Release

Third printing: includes a few minor errata fixes.

You can get the update either by logging in to your Bookshelf Home Page, or (if you’re already logged in) by downloading it from here.

Dave and Andy

http://pragmaticbookshelf.com

Awesome right? They not only have informed me of an updated version of a book I bought from them, but have also automatically sent it to my Kindle! More over, I can download my ebook in PDF, mobi or epub format, all without any senseless “protection mechanism”. It is this type of attention and treatment that have won me over and whenever I need to buy a technical book, I immediately check their store.

Also worth mentioning is their monthly, free publication PragPub magazine, also available in many different electronic types.

Anyhow, I don’t get any type of financial incentive for writing this up, so don’t feel that I’m trying to push off some type of affiliation code in order to make money. I happen to enjoy their service and attitude toward their customers and, if you’re ever decide to buy anything from them I hope your experience will be as enjoyable as mine.

Red Hat: The First 3 Months

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 12:15:49 -0500

This past Feb. 5th I was greeted early in the morning with the following email:

Congratulations for reaching 90 days of service with Red Hat!

It is hard for me to believe that it has been 3 months already since I started this new chapter in my career! My days have been filled with so many new things that it may explain why it literally feels like it was only yesterday that I left rPath to join the CloudForms QE Team here at Red Hat!

I’m still going through the transition period of coming off a startup, super fast paced environment to a (much, much) bigger company trying to solve a similar challenge. There is not a single day that goes by that I don’t meet someone new or learn yet a new trick about YUM or RPM. Keeping track of names, faces, where they sit and what they do has been a challenge on its own, but I believe I’m making some progress. Being the global company that we are, it is not always obvious where the person you spent the last few hours working on IRC is from…

So for the last 3 months I’ve been learning all I can absorb about all the different projects that are being developed here! I feel that I have learned a lot but there is still a lot to learn, which is awesome! When I think about the massive talent pool that we have and the caliber and enthusiasm of my co-workers, plus the magnitude of the challenges ahead and the impact that our projects will have in the enterprise world, I can’t help but feel that I am at the right place and at the right time!

Can I top this off? Yes, I can! For the first time in my life I can proudly say that everything that I work on is not only truly open sourced but have a thriving community of collaborators outside work! In other words, anyone from outside Red Hat can see the issues I’ve worked on, what’s currently assigned to me and even download and play with the source code of the project!

So these first 90+ days have been a blur of excitement and learning for me and I’m really excited about the upcoming months and all the good stuff that is yet to come down the pipe! It is a great time to be a Red Hatter!

Sorry for the noise...

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 10:53:52 -0500

I’ve just recently started migrating my blog to Tumblr, and in the process of importing my archives from WordPress I seem to have caused some issues with certain aggregators that are now picking up posts from 2007… Yesterday I also triggered a massive torrent on both Twitter and Facebook…

Please accept my apologies for the incovenience… more on the Tumblr migration to follow!

One year went by...

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 14:58:00 -0400

… and today, chatting online with André Noel, I remembered that I was at Linux World Expo in Boston, MA representing Ubuntu! I had my “15 seconds of fame” when I was interviewed by the guys from Lulu.tv.

Those were 3 great days that I’ll never forget…