Adventures in Terminal.app coding (Part I)

In June of '08, I decided to get myself a MacBook.  As a CS student going into my second year, and most of my assignments requiring UNIX compatibility (well, NetBSD to be totally accurate), I wanted a system that would last a while, have some pretty hot hardware, be somewhat reasonably priced, and have strong support for *NIX OS's.  Granted, the MacBook isn't the cheapest laptop in the market, but for what you get, its a decent value.

One great feature is how there's an awesome terminal built right in.  It runs bash by default, and has a lot of the GNU tools (and I'm a HUGE GNU screen fan) installed either by default or with the dev tools.  Most important is its support for a SSH connection and X forwarding running on top of that.  Previous semesters saw projects that ran entirely in console mode, or were (mostly) cross-platform Java apps, while now I'm writing GLUT apps that need a screen to display on, so I'm moving outside of simple terminal use.

My preference, so far, has been vim in an SSH login.  It's easy enough to learn, and I haven't really had the time or desire to learn emacs to date.  My only issue is having to jump into pico for a Makefile, since I have vim set up to use 2 spaces instead of a tab.  Aside from some of the usual *NIX grumbles (specifically, constant use of the command line), this is a great experience.  Running inside screen, a utility I discovered only a few months ago, has seen my productivity double or triple, and allows me to do work from anywhere for either a few minutes or a few hours.  The only issue is that a wireless connection is a bit much for a SSH session, with the lag ruining the otherwise native speed of access.

As a bonus, here are my .vimrc and .screenrc files:

.vimrc:

set background=dark
syntax on
set softtabstop=2
set shiftwidth=2
set tabstop=4
set expandtab
set nowrap
set ruler
set number
set numberwidth=4
set cursorline

.screenrc:

hardstatus alwayslastline
hardstatus alwayslastline "%{+b kw}[ %H ] %{yK} (%n). %t  %-=%{kk} %{gk}%c.%s  %{yk}%d.%m.%Y"
startup_message off
screen -t screen1 1
screen -t screen2 2
screen -t screen3 3
screen -t screen4 4

Text Messaging

Something has really bothered me recently, and that's about how the connected world leads us to be unconnected.

As people, we only have a limited attention span. We can deal with only a limited number of elements, but with the Internet, and especially cell phones, we are constantly connected to everything. Thus, we can't devote full attention to the 'here and now.'

This came to my attention after going out with a few friends. One was so focussed on her cell phone, specifically on texting someone who wasn't even there, that she was not able to enjoy herself, and instead became overly absorbed in something else.

While you can argue that this might be a good thing, or it might be important, it is definitely rude and most certainly a questionable action.

Leave the world to be, and focus on what presents difficulty or opportunity to you in the present.