bobochan

5 ms·

1.
by bobochan 3y ago
I miss the other direction, being able to put shortcuts (aliases) in your Apple menu. When OS X was still young there used to be a "haxes" called Fruit Menu that let you do that, but I think that has been gone for a while. There a
2.
by bobochan 4y ago
I have not found it especially useful on my MBP, but it is a huge improvement for me on the iPad with keyboard and mouse. It feels much more natural now to have two windows open and quickly switch between apps. I used my iPad for about 80%
3.
by bobochan 4y ago
This is so completely random, and not really code related, but it was huge at the time (circa 1990). I was compiling large bibliographies of research documents for NSF that eventually had to be read into Word Perfect 5.1 for DOS for printin
4.
by bobochan 4y ago
I also like FPM and the ecosystem. In case anyone is just getting started with Fortran, definitely checkout the Fortran Standard Library project: https://github.com/fortran-lang/stdlib
5.
by bobochan 4y ago
Tremendous! One of my first tasks with QuickBasic 4.5 was writing an AKAC-874 code generator (for training purposes only) for some Marines at the embassy where I was stationed. It seemed the least that I could do considering they kept me fe
6.
by bobochan 4y ago
Great. Thanks so much for following up. This is a great project and I am definitely looking forward to trying it and learning more.
7.
by bobochan 4y ago
Hi, sorry for the delay, I wanted to do a clean install of sbcl and quicklisp just to double check. I was having trouble getting the plotting code to work, so I cloned Lisp-Stat/plot and tried to follow the instructions: * (asdf:clear-
8.
by bobochan 4y ago
I gave this a try but still ran into issues. First it was a missing file, description.text, so I created a temporary one, but have not been able to figure it out after going through all of the different possibilities on the web site and git
9.
by bobochan 4y ago
Glad it is not just me. I did a clean install and follow the examples on the web site step by step: debugger invoked on a QUICKLISP-CLIENT:SYSTEM-NOT-FOUND in thread #<THREAD "main thread" RUNNING {1004BF80A3}>: System &quot
10.
by bobochan 4y ago
For me it was strictly personal use. For example, I made a series of maps for stadiums for teams in the EFL Championship to use as wallpaper when my club has away matches. I also made some for my hometown and for the universities where my
11.
by bobochan 4y ago
I played around with this library a few months ago and it is an absolute joy to use if you like maps.
12.
by bobochan 4y ago
One of my favorite sports memories was going to my son's first big cross-country running meet. There were hundreds of kids lined up for the race and parents lined the course to cheer them on. The crowds clapped loudly for the leaders,
13.
by bobochan 4y ago
If you are open to a broader score of university work then you might consider connecting with the Research Software Engineer Associations in the countries that you would consider working in. They have a lot of networking discussions over Sl
14.
by bobochan 4y ago
The most important anecdote that I can tell from the early 1980s is how optimistic we all were. My dad was an engineer and helped take the lead on fundraising to buy Apple ][+ computers for the school classrooms in our town. He used to earn
15.
by bobochan 4y ago
My memory is that MS laughed because they did not believe the hype. The laughing stopped when they got the first iPhones in house and were able to see how much space Apple was able to dedicate to the battery.
16.
by bobochan 4y ago
I had a similar path to nano. Pico was the default editor for the Pine email client, and I still use Alpine for work decades later. I am generally an emacs user, but nano / pico definitely feel familiar and comfortable.
17.
by bobochan 4y ago
I was in Central Africa (CAR and Chad) in the early 90s and shortwave was a lifeline. The BBC was on in the background almost all day, with the exception of switching to the VOA once in a while to check on sports scores. Beyond news, shortw
18.
by bobochan 4y ago
I can't believe WRJ came up on HN. But, where are you seeing that? WRJ only has one zip code (that I know of), 05001. WRJ (population between 2,000-3,000) is not only smaller than Cleveland, it is not actually a town. WRJ is a village
19.
by bobochan 5y ago
Dartmouth celebrated the 50th anniversary of BASIC a few years ago and they were pretty consistent in keeping it all upper case. https://www.dartmouth.edu/basicfifty/basic.html True BASIC, a company that Kemeny and Kur
20.
by bobochan 5y ago
French instruction starts very early in our town in Vermont because there are over 8 million French speakers right next to us, including almost 2 million living right over the border in Montréal. The ability to communicate in French has bee
21.
by bobochan 5y ago
Yes, if you read the first Dartmouth BASIC documentation you immediately understand that Kurtz and Kemeny were designing a language that students could teach themselves, with the goal of them being able to transition to Fortran.
22.
by bobochan 5y ago
I had an SE/30! It was a big upgrade from my Mac Plus, even with the external floppy drive, because I could finally compile Pascal code without having to swap discs. All of this was a HUGE upgrade from my //e with only one dr
23.
by bobochan 5y ago
This is probably a "me problem," but I have had a hard time moving beyond the tutorials to actually getting work done. For example, I am working on a project right now where I would typically use a dict of dicts in python and then
24.
by bobochan 5y ago
Almost up to 365 days on Duolingo: French, German, Italian.
25.
by bobochan 5y ago
I just re-read Xah's notes and all of that rings a bell, but off of comp.lang.lisp Erik could be incredibly kind in helping other programmers. I was working my way through an early edition of _A programmer's guide to Common Lisp_
26.
by bobochan 5y ago
Exactly. I still have a //e on my desk and learned how to use VisiCalc because a high school friend's dad was an exec at Symbolics and we would swap back and forth between playing games and trying to figure out cool things to
27.
by bobochan 5y ago
Agreed. My kids learned MicroWorlds Logo in elementary school from LCSI (Logo Computer Systems Inc). They definitely enjoyed the experience and it served a good preparation for learning other languages as they got older.
28.
by bobochan 5y ago
I knew this was going to be about Brian Harvey as soon as I saw the title. He was a wonderful presence on comp.lang.logo years ago and would even help struggling noobs with their Scheme questions on occasion. He is a very clear writer and h
29.
by bobochan 5y ago
"Many highly selective colleges expect students to take calculus in high school." Which is exactly why this is not about "gifted" students (whatever that means), but about a lot of students that are interested in math an
30.
by bobochan 5y ago
We had a Pascal class on a VAX in my high school in 1983, and it was fantastic. We used the classic "Oh! Pascal!" text and it was great preparation for college. There was no CS major at the liberal arts school where I ended up, bu

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