cloudhead.io

Why OS X just doesn't cut it

2011-04-18

Once upon a time, I did all my development in OS X. It was quite nice: I did my editing in TextMate and sometimes Xcode, I typed commands into Terminal.app, and most of the packages I needed had a nice .pkg file I could open. I was fairly happy with this setup.

With time, though, I started to look for ways to optimize my workflow further. Cut corners, automate—cause that’s what us hackers do. The first thing I did was to switch from TextMate to vim, it was really painful, but once I got through it, there was bliss. Then I started playing around with X11 and tiling window managers, like xmonad. After a while, I realized I was spending most of my time in the X11 app. How odd it was. But it had the advantage of letting me have a full-screen terminal, run vim without the limitations of Terminal.app (no I don’t like MacVim), and use xmonad instead of Aqua (See picture).

This was awkward at times though, and X11 was buggy on OS X. So finally, I decided to drop OS X all together, and install my favorite Linux distribution: Arch Linux. This is the best decision I’ve made for my workflow and productivity. I’ll try to explain why.

package, packages

Now why does this matter? It’s simple: to develop, we need tools, and to download and install these tools, we need a good package manager and a well maintained package repository. OS X comes with a lot of things pre-installed, but they are often out of date, so we need the ability to get new packages.

OS X has been gimped for a long time, when it comes to package management – we’ve gone through fink, the awful ports system, and now homebrew. All this to get a slice of the Unix pie. But none of these offer a complete package-management system like that offered by Arch Linux. Homebrew, the only sane choice not only has a tiny package repository, but has been pretty unreliable in my experience, when it comes to installing things with a lot of dependencies, such as Haskell or couchdb. This is not homebrew’s fault though: OS X is just unlike other *nixes (more on this later).

The other issue is that it has to download everything as source code, and compile it. Need a package right now? Nope—you have to wait for it and all its dependencies to compile on your lightning fast MacBook Air. This can be really annoying, some packages take a long time to compile. Arch Linux, on the other hand, has 64 bit binaries for everything. It literally takes less than 10 seconds from typing pacman -S ruby to having ruby-1.9.2 installed on your system. Want to upgrade every single package on your system? No problem. The pacman command can even upgrade your kernel on the fly. This is a big problem with OS X—it doesn’t come with package management built-in, so when you install something via homebrew, you end up with two versions, and there’s no way to just upgrade the packages that came pre-installed, unless you re-install everything with homebrew.

Many OS X users love it, and I don’t blame them, when you’ve had to deal with ports or (gasp) no package management at all for so long, homebrew is a breath of fresh air.

Homebrew’s beautiful ruby DSL will not save you.

darwin

When it comes to *nix systems, Darwin, Mac OS X’s naked body is one odd duck. Things which build & run cleanly on other *nixes won’t necessarily build & run that easily on Darwin. This is because it functions differently to other *nixes, and isn’t used much, outside of OS X, so a lot of *nix packages aren’t tested on it.

This will never be a problem on Linux. If I want to install some esoteric language run-time, I just know it’ll work, and you know why? Because it was fucking built for it, like all other system packages. Mac OS’s support for tools like valgrind is still in its infancy, for example.

The other annoyance is that unless you’re developing iOS apps, you’re not developing on your target platform.

workflow

The OS X terminal blows. If you haven’t realized, then maybe OS X is for you after all. But if you know what I’m talking about you’re probably using something like iTerm right now, and using MacVim or TextMate for your editing needs. Not only is Terminal.app not a full-color terminal, it can’t handle mouse events (yes, in X, I can re-size a vertical-split in vim with my mouse), can’t go full-screen, and isn’t very customizable. As a hacker, I like to optimize my workflow and customize my tools as much as I can. If I’m not in my editor, I’m probably in the terminal, so this is a big deal.

OS X isn’t very customizable either. Advanced settings are hidden in .plist files, managing daemons is a bitch, and you’re pretty much stuck with Aqua as your UI. Now don’t get me wrong, I would take Aqua over Gnome or KDE any day. But these interfaces are really not that great for programming, they are mouse-centric, cluttered, and force you to manually arrange your windows if you want to see more than one thing on the screen. When you’re in flow, reaching out for the mouse sucks. Ideally you’d want a window manager which was built for the keyboard, in the same way your editor was built for the keyboard, and so was your terminal. On Linux (X11), there’s a wide variety of these to chose from. I’ve settled for dwm after trying several of them out.

We’ve all played around with dotfiles, I have my very own set. But why stop there?

open source

Well, as a developer, having a fully open-source system is a win. I don’t think I need to further argue this subject—we all agree open-source is good.

closing thoughts

If everything I said went over your head, and you think I’m crazy, it just means your time hasn’t come yet.

I remember reading Salvatore Sanfilippo (the author of redis)’s thoughts on this matter two years ago, when I was still on OS X: http://antirez.com/post/linux-better-for-coding.html. It’s a good read, and covers some of the stuff I covered here.

On Respect of Property

2011-03-17

–

her: hello

me: a
me: she was logged in
me: to facebook
me: on my computer.

her: oh yes.

me: ??????
me: ...

me: NO ONE USES MY COMPUTER

her: ok
her: sorry

me: NO NE
me: NONE
her: okay
me: NO ONE
me: lol
her: i getit
her: will never happen again
her: ever
her: i totally understand
her: calm dowm
me: ...she didnt even log out...
her: its my fault
me: OMG
me: WHAT?
her: dont yell at me on ichat doode
me: lol
me: .

me: ok
her: i didnt tell her not to log out
her: i hate it when people use my laptop so i know how u feel
her: but i didnt know what to say
me: lol
me: wtf
me: she just *opened* it?
her: she was like "can i use his cpu"
her: and i was like "i guess"
me: oh.
her: i apologise
her: but i didnt tell her not to log out
me: lol
her: and she said she just wanted to check her emails
her: but its horrible because
her: one of the reasons why I spent so much time on my computer
her: is coz i dont want her to ask me if she can use it
me: L.O.L
me: dude
me: you're like
her: ca m'insupporte que les gens utilisent mon ordi
me: a *computer nerd*
her: and like sign out
her: of my stuff
me: lol i know
her: and sign in with theirs
me: yea
her: and then i have to sign in again
me: yea
her: with my fucking password
me: yea
me: AND THEY DONT LOGOUT
her: its like, my computer is perfect
her: its perfectly programmed
her: FOR ME
her: i dont want anything to change
her: ..

me: worse is
me: when people CLOSE WINDOWS
me: LIKE
me: HELLO?
me: DO YOU WANT ME TO
me: COME TO YOUR HOUSE,
me: OPEN THE FRONT DOOR,
me: and *CLOSE ALL YOUR WINDOWS*??
me: LIKE WTF? I LEFT IT OPEN FOR A REASON.
her: lol
her: yea
her: dude
her: calm
her: on my big computer
her: someone deleted Word.
her: the application.
her: i didnt have it anymore.
me: OH MY GOD
her: i was like wtf?
me: yea no kidding
her: i go to open word and its like, not there.
me: lol.
her: anyway, i'm sorry she used your cpu
me: I try to never ask
me: if I can use someone's computer
her: and even more so that she used it to change her status
me: coz I know it's impolite
her: yeah, me neither
me: it's like
me: "can I use your washroom? I need to take a dump."
her: lol
her: or its like vim disorganising my dvd piles
her: its like: "its that way 4 a reason"
her: time was spent
her: thought was put into the precise placing of each dvd.
her: i feel like such a geek
me: LOL
her: for caring
me: lol
me: it's fucking annoying when people move your stuff
me: especially when tornado vim does
her: LOL
her: yea, its pretty hardcore
me: like
me: if he comes to my place
me: ima hide all my shit
me: in closets
her: LOL
me: lol.
me: nope - nothing here
me: just moved in
me: lol
her: empty flat
me: xD
me: yea
her: hah
her: and the worst thing is that, like
her: i feel like im so careful with other peoples stuff
her: i get the impression that ppl dont care
her: but really they just dont realise
md: I KNOW
her: but its so annoying
me: lol
me: I'm like
me: I put stuff at the same angle
me: I took it
me: I don't like people knowing I touched their stuff
her: lol
me: but that's the thing
her: like when im at someone's house, i'm SO careful with everything
me: I think we do that cause we care
me: I bet if you threw vim's shit around
me: he wouldnt care
her: like to leave the flat exactly how i left it
me: lol
her: yea
her: thats the thing
me: yea
her: its not that they dont care, its just that they dont realise it can be annoying
me: yea i hope so
her: well, yea, i hope, of course
her: otherwise its just mean
her: but that happens so often
her: even with good friends of mine
her: when they come to my house i get all stuck up and stressed out
me: haha!
me: yeh
me: some friends are more careful than others
her: that sounds like a smiths song
me: I'm even careful in my house
me: like
me: LOL
her: some girls are bigger than others
me: zomg
me: k
me: I was gonna say like
me: If there ain't much milk left
me: I'm not gonna mouth dump it
me: you know
me: but
me: someone like vim
me: would just chug it down
me: and look for another one to chug down
me: or like
me: you know people who just
me: open ur fridge.

me: LIKE, HELLO?!

her: lol omg, yes!
her: or like eat ur nutella
me: omg
her: i have a friend like that
her: im like "dont u have nutella at ur house?"
me: LOL
her: every time she comes to mine she eats all my nutella
me: lol
me: also
me: OH
me: ANOTHER ONE
her: i like make food and she eats it all and then ask for nutella
me: like
her: when i was working at cannes i would take my stationary with me in my bag
her: always have it on me
her: so no one would take it
me: yea
me: lol
me: so annoying
her: yea, people can be so inconsiderate
me: its like
me: they'll take my $15 artist marker
me: and start filling an area
me: on a white page
me: with black.
me: like
me: cant you just buy some BLACK PAPER?
her: LOL
her: omg
her: thats horrible

-

Staying the hell out of insert mode

2010-04-24

Back in the day, the first thing I learnt about vi was how to get into insert mode. It was really quite essential, because without knowing how, you couldn’t actually type anything.

The secret was in the ‘i’ command. The i command was what made vi useable, it was the alpha and the omega, vi’s be-all end-all—and whenever the editor would magically exit insert mode, panic would ensue and I’d frantically press i to go back to insert-land.

I mean, what else would you want to do in a text editor, besides enter text? It puzzled me for a long time.

The i key turned this rather archaic and obtuse program into a text-editor which would respond predictably to keystrokes. I remember being asked from time to time: “So what’s the deal with vi?” I’d answer something in the lines of: “Vi? you have to press i to type. Also, try not to press Esc”.

But that was then, and this is now. Today, vim is my primary editor. What I’d like to show you, is how to stay the hell out of insert mode.

Why stay out?

Insert mode is vi’s weakest mode. In this mode, it’s no better than any other editor, and you may as well be using any other editor. Vi’s true power lies in its ‘Normal mode’. Yes, inserting text is not normal in vi-land. The more time you spend in Normal mode, the more super-powers you will have. Trust me, it doesn’t get any less normal than Normal mode.

Someone once argued that insert mode was actually vi’s most powerful mode, because it was the only mode in which you could insert text. He obviously wasn’t familiar with :r.

How do you get the frack out?

Common knowledge states that pressing the Esc key will get you out of insert mode. This is correct. This is also not very useful. If you’re going to move in and out of insert mode all the time, you’re going to want it to be as seamless as possible. There are two other ways to get out of insert mode:

Ctrl-[

and

Ctrl-C

This is especially useful if you have your Caps Lock key binded to Ctrl (which, of course, you all do, right?).

The other alternative, which I have chosen, is to map a key sequence to Esc. Vi lets you map arbitrary sequences of keys to anything you like. For instance, you could map jj to Esc. j is on the home row, so you don’t need to move your fingers to exit insert mode. I tried this out for a while, as well as a couple of other alternatives. In the end, I settled for kj—as it was the fastest to type. To create this mapping, add this to your .vimrc file:

inoremap kj <Esc>

Another really useful trick is switching to normal mode for a single command. You can do this with Ctrl-O. For instance, say you’re typing away and you want to quickly save your work, you can type Ctrl-O :w, which will write the file and put you back in insert mode.

Learning, the hard way

How do you stop yourself from spending too much time in insert mode? Add these key mappings to your .vimrc:

inoremap <Left>  <NOP>
inoremap <Right> <NOP>
inoremap <Up>    <NOP>
inoremap <Down>  <NOP>

This will make sure you don’t get your little fingers on the arrow keys, and start navigating (gasp) in insert mode.

During your stay

Even though staying out of insert mode is safest, knowing what you can do in this mode can be useful for the duration of your stay. I know I bashed it a little, but it deserves some recognition for these useful commands:

Ctrl-Y: insert the character right above the cursor—you can see how this can be useful…
Ctrl-U: delete the current line from the cursor position.
Ctrl-A: re-insert the text inserted in the previous insert session.

I hope I didn’t put you off of insert mode too much. After all, as someone once said: “it is the only mode in which you can insert”.

On Writing and Drawing

2010-03-15

As an artist and occasional writer, I often wonder about what makes a craft. It’s in our interest to understand the process and idiosyncrasies involved, to get better at what we do, and to be able to ‘hack’ the process when necessary. This first article is an attempt at covering some ground on what, to me, are some of the more interesting elements of the mediums we choose to create with. It’s a start, and by no means covers the full extent of my thoughts, but it’s what I’ve managed to formulate so far. I chose to start with writing and drawing, because I am most familiar with these.

So what are the elements which make up these crafts? What do you have to deal with when writing or illustrating a story? What is the process? What does the artist go through? People are very reluctant to compare different forms, “It’s just not the same thing”, but my interest lies in finding patterns in things where you would typically not think there are any. So here are a some of my observations.

I. The elements of writing and drawing

Writing’s biggest trait is its continuity. That is, it has a beginning and an end. Where a drawing merely represents a moment, writing happens in time. The only way drawing can mimic this is through multiplicity, but we’ll deal with that another time. The other trait of writing is its very unique impact on each reader, because what you are transmitting must first be interpreted before being experienced: The words themselves don’t contain any information which can be sensed or felt, you derive meaning from your own experience associated with that word. And meaning is imperfect knowledge…

Transmitting meaning to someone else is a lossy process, I like to think of it as listening to a shitty song recording, compressed to a 16 kbps MP3, playing through your mobile phone speaker. We can only transmit meaning through other vehicles, such as spoken and written word, at least, until we figure out telepathy, which should remove the middle man. So experiencing writing is a two step process, which involves more thought than senses, and for that reason, I consider it to be a 2nd degree form.

How about the process of writing? Writing is sort of all or nothing. It is a form which I don’t consider very granular, meaning the smallest elements of expression you can work with aren’t that small. Even a single word might have too much meaning or carry baggage you don’t want. These are the things you have to deal with when writing. I think of it as assembling trivial meaning into greater meaning.

Sentences have a very rigid structure you have to respect—you can’t just put any words in them in the order which pleases you; it’s quite common to rewrite a sentence, just to accomodate a new word. Poetry offers a way to break out of this. It gives the author more control, at the expense of being more abstract, and I’ll talk about that later.

Writing cannot be experienced through the senses. You might appreciate typography by looking at font characters, but unless you read the words and know what they mean, you won’t get to experience anything. This is one of the reasons why I think it is harder to find flaws in your own writing. Your analytic brain is too tightly coupled with the language you use in writing. The other reason is that writing isn’t the representation of anything concrete. There is nothing to compare it to. Writing is abstract. It doesn’t exist in a meaningful way outside of our minds.

Structured thought is not to be found in nature. Writing is something you imagine in your head, it is experienced through thought. Words are only there to trigger those thoughts, sometimes combinations of thoughts which have never been experienced before. That is where the power lies.

Drawing is the artists interpretation of the world. Notice that in the case of writing, the reader’s interpretation is most important. Drawing is a 1st degree form. Drawing is about seeing things as they truly are, not how they appear to be. We tend to see things the way they make the most sense to us. I bet that if mice could draw, they would draw us with huge feet, because that is their perspective on the world. Drawing is in a way, the flip side of writing. It is not tied to language or interpretation like writing is. It just is. When you draw a chair, you must forget everything you know about chairs, and just think about the different shapes which form it.

Language is a dangerous tool, because it closes us in a symbolic world. By putting words on to meaning, we lose the ability to see meaning. When you look at a chair, what you see is not the chair, but the meaning you created or associated with the word ‘chair’. So drawing is about unlearning a lot of things, and short-circuiting the interpretation, while writing is about finding the right combination of words, which you hope, will trigger the emotion, or meaning you want to express.

In the next part, I’d like to delve into the mental process involved, and how we can hack it.

The Metaphorical Allegory of the Drunken Pirate

2007-04-15

What are you going to do with the drunken pirate??? I mean, the inquisit details of his thick white beard are questioning my sense of existence! – Why are we over boat anyway? do you feel the vibe of the summer wind, the scorched earth feeding on the soon to be dead sea, the evergreen, the dark clouds of passion, reminiscent of periods long forgotten. Where is my last supper? hunger possesses my soul to the end, to my end, to the answer of all questions, to my intricate relationship with the world, to the sky and to the gods. Oh gods! how big is your love for us? Why do we not know what we want, why have you given us the knowledge to become? The trees fall now..

Thereafter, the world once in peace, becomes possessed by the darkest of winds, surrounded by dubious forests of factual knowledge, then we all despair because the carrot cannot understand the cucumber, which is the same reason you don’t understand who you are, the same reasons you want to think you’re a fucking cow who drinks erotic milk. But do you ever question the milk drinker? do you question when he is so what you want to be? Therein we have everything, in this stupid mindfuck of our sister-life: the tao inducing spirit of the monkey, always resting on our shoulder to teach us and tell us what we are and what we do. An absence of this absynth would make us nothing but the puny language we are used to use too used to use. Now lies dead the cow voided of his milk from the void of his milk. Drunk is the herotic beer drinker. Drunk is the eroic milk bearer.