Arcane Gazebo

Editor wars thread

I don't actually expect it to lead to a flamewar here, but I am nevertheless invoking one of the longstanding Internet disputes with this announcement: I have recently switched from emacs to vi¹.

For the uninitiated: emacs and vi are the two most common text editors in Unix environments. They're meant for editing unformatted text such as computer programs. I'm doing a lot of Unix programming these days (in Perl and C++) so a good text editor is essential. The two have fairly different philosophies: emacs does more or less what you would expect, in that you can type words and they appear on the screen, but it also has a ton of extra functions (such as programming with butterflies). Unfortunately even simple ones like, say, "save" have to be accessed by typing a sequence of obscure key commands, usually while holding down the control key.

On the other hand, if you open up a file with vi and start typing, words will not appear on the screen. If you're lucky it'll just beep at you repeatedly; it might also start deleting portions of your file apparently at random. Fortunately you'll never figure out the command to save, so your original file will be unharmed; unfortunately you'll never figure out how to quit either, and be stuck there forever (or until you open up Google and look it up).

At least, that was my first experience with vi, and having concluded that it was designed by alien intelligences I quickly became a convert to emacs. However, I recently began to question that decision, for a number of reasons:

• Peer pressure. Almost everyone in my department uses vi. In fact, when I was assigned to a newly assembled Unix box and complained to the sysadmin that emacs wouldn't run there, his response was "Well, most people use vim." (He did set up emacs for me despite his disdain for it.)
• It reminds me of playing nethack. At some point in the past I had to learn to play nethack on a laptop keyboard (i.e. without the number pad), and only later found out that I had thus inadvertently learned how to move the cursor in vi³. This was actually the biggest part of the learning curve. There are other similarities to nethack, such as the primitive-looking interface, the obscure extended commands, and the fact that a typo at the wrong time can kill you.
• I got tired of holding down Control every time I wanted to do anything. (But hitting escape to get out of insert mode is almost as bad. Maybe I should remap it to some other key.)

Anyway, I went home one night and went through the vim tutorial, and discovered that it's not as hard as I thought, and ended up switching entirely.

Rather than actually make this an editor wars thread, consider this a place to suggest your favorite Unix programs for software development (or whatever else).

¹ Actually, vim².
² Well, technically gvim.
³ Except that the diagonal movement keys do other, more drastic things in vi, which can cause trouble when I forget I'm not playing nethack.

Comment previewing fixed (probably)

I didn't realize it had broken in the upgrade until this week, but I think I've fixed the comment preview template so previewing should work again. Now I just need to post more often so there's a reason for people to comment...

Thought I was done with exams

Tomorrow I take the Series 7 exam, which is the standardized licensing exam for stockbrokers. Even though I work in a proprietary trading group, and don't go anywhere near any brokering-related activities, this is apparently one of the certifications I need if I'm going to be involved with the details of trading.

I think the last time I studied for a standardized test was when I was preparing for the physics GRE; needless to say this is a very different experience. I'm used to tests where I reason out the answers from a few basic rules, but the Series 7 mainly tests knowledge of the regulations concerning brokerage firms, so it's almost all memorization and nothing more. There's some logic to the general boundaries of these regulations but almost all of the specifics are arbitrary: there's no way to derive the Regulation T margin requirement from first principles.

So I'll get a question like, "How many additional shares may an underwriter sell under the green shoe option?", and unless I can remember the one line in the phone-book-sized study guide that referred to this, and not get the percentage mixed up with the countless other similar numbers in other regulations, I'll be stuck. And it doesn't help that "green shoe option" only makes me think of this:

If only securities laws were as easy to remember as Mario trivia...

(Actually, there's a mnemonic here: the Kuribo's shoe only appeared in world 5-3 of Super Mario Bros. 3, and 5x3 is 15, exactly the percentage allowed in the green shoe option. Having discovered this, I'm unlikely to miss a similar question on the actual exam. This suggests that if I can just create a mapping between my Mario knowledge and the Series 7 material, I'll do very well (and then I can write the Super Mario Guide to the Series 7 Exam). However, I expect to pass the test as is and higher scores are frowned upon in my group, as they indicate too much time spent studying rather than doing something more productive.)

Political advantages of name recognition

When I was in high school I was a resident of Connecticut's 4th congressional district, represented then and now by Chris Shays. As Republicans go he's not that bad. Nevertheless I feel strongly compelled to support his opponent this year. Could be the name.