Re: [dev] dwm only?

[Martin Swift]

On Sun, May 24, 2009 at 10:11 AM, Uriel  wrote:
> Other than ad hominems, [...]

This from the person whose inital contribution to this topic started
with "Stop whining". :-)

Gentlemen, different people will have different opinions of what
consitutes "chatter" and "stupid". Furthermore, not everyone has easy
access to nuanced filtering software. Fundamentally, this seems to be
a question between the simplicity of having everything in one list,
and sorted after the fact, versus the simplicity of subscribing to
multiple lists, versus the simplicity of having wmii and dwm sent to
dev.

Each has it's benefits and no matter the choice, someone is going to
be less than happy. No need to rub it in or make a huge fuss.

Take care,
Martin

Re: [dev][dwm][OT] redundant thread (was: broken gnome (even after reset) after usage of dwm 4.7)

[Martin Swift]

On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 11:25:18AM +0200, Uriel wrote:
> Somebody thought breaking gnome was a problem rather than a feature,
> my comment was *not* universally redundant.

It's not entirely clear what you mean by "universally" redundant. On
the other hand, it doesn't really matter. You're wrong anyway.

The comment made about your statement that '"broken gnome" is
redundant' was to the effect that (whatever other people may think
about gnome, whether you think it was broken by design or was broken
by someone) since your opinions on the topic are (all too?) well known
to list members, your reply was redundant.

Cheers,
Martin

Re: [dev] (x)HTML-based office suite? (aka suckless word processing solution-2)

[Martin Swift]

On Sun, Oct 18, 2009 at 05:38:00PM +0200, Uriel wrote:
> Then somebody needs to be burned at the stake. In this day and age,
> anyone using *any* encoding other than UTF-8 need to be lockedup and
> have the key thrown into a black hole, enough harm has been done
> already by retarded encodings.

I propose Uriel. I'll go cut down a tree. Someone get the rope and
firewood.

On Sun, Oct 18, 2009 at 01:02:42AM +0200, Uriel wrote:
> I told them, they banned me from their irc server. They are beyond all hope.

Oh, what a gold nugget! At least they have some shred of good taste.

Regards,
Martin

Re: [dev] content vs navigation in the web

[Martin Swift]

On Sun, Nov 08, 2009 at 03:18:23PM +0100, markus schnalke wrote:
> Why do people use lists, which take a line for each item? It's easy to
> do it without lists and thus having the items of one level all in a
> line.

First of all, people use lists because they are a sensible way to
structure a /list/ of items. Secondly, there is nothing inherent about
the list that demands that they be displayed one item per line --
that's just a sensible default and this is one of the reasons why we
have CSS.

Finally, you're absolutely right that one can do it without lists.
While one certainly isn't bound by any design principles there are, at
the same time, benefits to those principles. As for weighing the pros
and contras I'll let this do for now given the large name-calling-to-
substance ratio on this list. It's an interesting topic, though.

Take care,
Martin

Re: [dev] Local vs global variables

[Martin Swift]

On Fri, Nov 06, 2009 at 10:25:35PM +0100, Uriel wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 10:01 PM, Robert C Corsaro  
> wrote:
> > There are fundamentalists the are wrong, and fundamentalists that are
> > correct.  I _always_ choose the correct ones because choosing the incorrect
> > ones would be stupid.
> 
> The only thing that really matters is to 1) know your limitations 2)
> recognize it when you find that you were wrong about something.

The problem with the first bit is that knowing one's limitations isn't
as straight forward as one may feel. You may know the error of your
ways from experience, but this is all too often extrapolated to new
field. While intuition is a valuable asset based on experience
(whatever the type) it will never enable one to know what, or how
much, one doesn't know. Thus, one can only know one's limitations
after the fact. 

I completely agree with the second part. I'd furthermore point out
that such recognition is usually arrived at after some internal and
often external debate. Humble, logical reasoning enables that while
tactics involving calling one's opposition  -
 full of   often serves little other
than to entrench the two camps.

Granted, sarcasm can be a great literary tool, but like with any
sophisticated construct, it must be handled with skill if we are to
achieve the desired result. In the case above, Uriel mistook a
sarcastic remark for an honest opinion.

I have no intention of rubbing his nose in it -- especially since the
reply was pretty reasoned and interesting -- but perhaps this is a
lesson to all to adopt a little more humility in our ability to know
the limits of our literary abilities and temper our tones.

> Changing your mind (*in the face of new evidence or understanding!*)
> is not something to be ashamed of, it is something everyone should be
> proud of.

Hear, hear!

Good night,
Martin

Re: [dev] Local vs global variables

[Martin Swift]

On Mon, Nov 09, 2009 at 01:18:36AM +0100, hiro wrote:
> > Granted, sarcasm can be a great literary tool, but like with any
> > sophisticated construct, it must be handled with skill if we are to
> > achieve the desired result. In the case above, Uriel mistook a
> > sarcastic remark for an honest opinion.
> 
> How come you are so sure about that, my friend?

Because in a reply to Uriel, Robert said so:

On Fri, Nov 06, 2009 at 04:29:40PM -0500, Robert C Corsaro wrote:
> I agree with all your points in spirit.  I would only like to point
> out that I was obviously being sarcastic.

I've replied to both his and your emails so you'll have the
in-reply-to header fields to track that email down if you like.

On Mon, Nov 09, 2009 at 01:18:36AM +0100, hiro wrote:
> > I have no intention of rubbing his nose in it -- especially since the
> > reply was pretty reasoned and interesting -- but perhaps this is a
> > lesson to all to adopt a little more humility in our ability to know
> > the limits of our literary abilities and temper our tones.
> 
> Why should we?

Sorry, I don't quite understand your question. Are you asking why we
should try to learn from experience?

Another possibility is that you're asking why we should adopt more
humility. Well, if you believe that everyone is fully understood by
each other (which, is demonstratably untrue) *or* if you believe that
the responsibility lies completely with the reader, then there is no
reason.

Should you on the other hand accept the evidence that people do seem
to misunderstand each other at times *and* if you agree that the blame
does not fall solely on the reader then you should see how it follows
from the desire for productive discussion.

I do admit that the final premise was silent. My apologies if that
caused confusion.

> And why does your post seem ironically [sic.] to me?

Not sure. Is that something I should know? It certainly wasn't
intended to be ironic.

Take care,
Martin

Re: [dev] [OT]: Lisp

[Martin Swift]

On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 05:25:09PM +0100, Mate Nagy wrote:
>  please stop posting

Please don't. I for one find this discussion somewhat interesting, not
the least for the effort to exchange logically sound argumets. It's a
refreshing alternative to the empty and useless mud-slinging that all
too often kills conversation.

It can be useful to return to first principles rather than seeking
refuge in the false security of consensus. No idea is better than the
strongest critisism it has levelled and the best evidence that one
knows something lies in being able to explain it to others.

Much of the discussion here, off-topic and on, is interesting.
Sometimes peoples' attitudes even make them enjoyable.

Have a good weekend,
Martin

[dev] [wmii] Odd key behaviour after changing focus in 3.9b1

[Martin Swift]

Dear Comrads,

First off, many thanks for 3.9b1. Being the fairly content (read:
lazy) type I'd never bothered updating from 3.6r2 which is still the
most recent packaged version in Gentoo's Portage. Being stuck in bed
with the flu I took the time to update the ebuild for the new version
and upgrade. For those interested, a working ebuild is now in the
version bump bug report:
  

I was quite happy with the new version. I haven't had time to look
into the font issue which I was having on 3.6 but one thing is
bothering me quite a bit:

When I switch focus to certain applications, the first two characters
seem to be passed to the application with a modifier. After the colon
I'll move to another application and then hit the "c" character three
times:čc. The first keypress enters nothing, the second the č but
after the third keypress all is fine.

Just hitting MODKEY produces the same effect.

This always affects terminals and GTK applications (I've tried surf,
pidgin and the gimp). Qt applications sometimes work. Tagainijisho and
Opera are fine, and Anki works except just after being moved to a
different column or after pressing MODKEY).

Is this a known issue? Any hints as to how to debug or fix?

Cheers,
Martin

Re: [dev] wmii can save settings on close, can't it ?

[Martin Swift]

On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 07:36:32PM +0100, Kai Großjohann wrote:
> So for me, it is the most natural idea in the world to start up the
> email program when I log in and to move it to the right
> workspace/view/tag so that Super+1 will show it.

Isn't this what tagrules do?

You can for example set
  xterm -title Mutt -e mutt
in a file in your action directory (or a startup script) and then
define the tagrule
  /Mutt/ -> 0
or similar.

Easy as pie, eh?

Cheers,
Martin

Re: [dev] licenses (was: simple portscanner)

[Martin Swift]

On Sun, Jan 03, 2010 at 04:19:08PM +0100, hiro wrote:
> > as you can't really pass your copyright in germany you should definitely 
> > base
> > your publication on some means of 'contract'/license to protect the one 
> > using
> > your code from you going mad and coming after him with some creepy lawyer. 
> > this
> > said, you best use something that has already gained some attention in a 
> > german
> > court.
> 
> And what protects him then from you going mad and coming after him
> with a basball bat?

The law.

It allows one to defend oneself without being prosecuted for doing so.

In the case of German law (and French as well, I believe), it seems
one cannot protect oneself once the author of a work that was released
into the public domain decides to change his mind and claim rights to
any and all software based on his code.

I'll agree that it's a valid reason to release work under a different
license, but on the other hand one might just as well take the
approach that German (and French?) voters chose this for themselves
and if they are interested in having secure access to works in the
public domain, they can very well fix their broken laws.

Cheers,
Martin

Re: [dev] licenses (was: simple portscanner)

[Martin Swift]

On Sun, Jan 03, 2010 at 06:03:38PM +0100, hiro wrote:
> So then why shouldn't you be able to defend yourself against creepy lawyers?

You should. That's the point.

> In Germany the law regarding software copyright is completely vague
> and can't be taken serious.

Then don't. :-)

Cheers,
Martin