Fogus: Things and Stuff of 2024

[leetrout]

Some commentary about the radar...

try: Boox Go 10.3 tablet

Agree. Avoid reMarkable™. Hostile to the community and better options are out there or on the way including Boox, Onyx and the new Daylight Computer.

https://daylightcomputer.com/product

https://www.zdnet.com/article/best-note-taking-tablet/

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adopt: Blank Spaces app

No need to pay money on ios. Clear off all the icons and when you need something swipe down in the middle of the screen and open search or swipe over to the alphabetical listing. Windows Phone was way ahead of its time on this one.

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assess: TypeScript – What does it buy me over JS?

This one is a little bit flame bait... at the cost of a build step you get a much more reasonable development experience for JS targets with reliable types. The problem is smart people want to flex their brain a lot more than their restraint (where are my grug brains at?) and type astronauting makes the experience much worse. As with all things there is a balance however TS should be "Adopt".

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hold: Zig – This looks like a dead-end for me

I keep looking at Zig and playing with it but I am so productive with Go and Python for things that need to be fast enough Zig doesn't have much that I need. However Mitchell Hashimoto is using it to great success for his new MacOS terminal emulator which makes me think I just haven't tried using it in the appropriate domain... maybe a raytracer is in my future.

https://mitchellh.com/ghostty

https://github.com/ghostty-org

[MisterKent]

Remarkable seems to be a pretty hackable device? They give SSH ability and have stated they're not removing it. I think it's a very good balance of letting the community do weird things while they focus on their core product.

I say this as someone who has not purchased one, but is considering it.

[dimitar]

I have a Boox Note Air 4C so here is the good:

* I can comfortably read any PDF; I don't think the font is too tiny. This is the main reason I bought it for.

* Android means great data support, I can open any format and I can even install the kindle app and read the books I purchased there.

* Using the pen seems nice enough, I started doing some annotations although I didn't buy this device for that.

* Nice way to sort of "airdrop" files from devices on the same network

The bad:

* I am a bit unhappy with the battery life; I hope I will tune it at some point.

* the screen is a little dark, so the "frontlight" needs to be on more often than a black and white e-ink device

The weird:

* the built-in AI assistant is trained in the PRC and has quite interesting opinions on current events and recent history.

[philips]

I really like my Supernote A5X. I can use the whole thing offline. And I built an obsidian plugin https://github.com/philips/supernote-obsidian-plugin?tab=rea...

[8n4vidtmkvmk]

I was trying zig yesterday. There seems to be a bunch of churn in build.zig; changed APIs. ChatGPT wasn't able to help. Rocky start but I did eventually get GLFW running, and the c-interop seems good. Also got some freezing in my IDE maybe from ZLS. So it still seems a bit rough at the moment but I'm still optimistic about it for things like game dev and compiling to wasm.

[norswap]

Zig — here's the choice matrix:

- You need strong performance, your choices are:

   * C: nope, unless it's super simple library-type code, must integrate as easily as possible with everything C compatible

   * C++: unless you have ecosystem lock-in, avoid this mess, stuck in an evolutionary rut where they can't undo bad decisions and keep adding more complexity (mostly good stuff, but total complexity too high)

   * Zig: better than C & fully compatible with it

   * Rust: ecosystem tailwinds, bit better safety than Zig, steeper learning curve and uglier code

   * Go: ok but GC probably means not the best perf

   * Java: JIT means it can handily beat non-painstakingly hand-optimized C code in some particular cases (requires a lot of wisdom to choose this for perf)

   * something that will incur a lot of pain in some other way like Fortran, Forth or Ada

- You need to export to C code (all of the above have options to import from C code with C/C++/Zig being the easy choices)

    * C: ez

    * Zig/C++: harder but still ez, need to write some wrappers when using features nont in C

All in all, for new system or high-perf work with no ecosystem tie in, it's probably a battle between Rust and Zig. I think I'd use Zig on aesthetic grounds — find it less painful to use than Rust, and I'm not too worried about missing on the extra safety. The converse decisions seems reasonable too.

[wonger_]

Ghostty is cross-platform, but it feels extra nice on macOS. https://gpanders.com/blog/ghostty-is-native-so-what/

[cooperadymas]

> Avoid reMarkable™. Hostile to the community

As a long time member of the so-called "community" I have never once felt hostility from the company. Quite the opposite in fact.

> > assess: TypeScript – What does it buy me over JS?

> This one is a little bit flame bait

This is disingenuous and entirely unfair. The author very clearly indicated they wanted to assess whether it is beneficial for their own individual purposes. There was no intent to generalize and purport upon its general utility.

[fud101]

I won't use TS again. I'll wait til JS gets a better types story and adopt that. Build step is a deal breaker imho.

[divan]

Boox also has 13" tablet, which is amazing for reading A4 papers and can be used to work outside under direct sunlight (I use ssh+mosh+tailscale and bluetooth keyboard).

[voidUpdate]

This is the second time I've seen the Alexander the OK video about Elite referenced here in two workdays. I love that channel so much, he does excellent dives into the history of more obscure vintage computers, such as the D-17B Minuteman guidance computer and the CK37 used in the Viggen jet

[jwhitlark]

Nerd sniped on the first entry. The first sentence of the first entry. The first minute of the video in the first sentence. The first comment in the video, etc.

If anyone was going to manage recursive, fractal, nerd sniping, it would be fogus, of course.

[tonymet]

I esteem & enjoy Requiem for a Dream, but I couldn't bear watching it again, despite a dozen tries. By that measure it's the best horror movie of all time.

[gandalfgeek]

Love Fogus, but zero mention of how LLMs impacted programming in 2024?

[fogus]

LLMs have had very little influence on my programming so far.

[bachmeier]

It may not have been important or interesting to him, or maybe he just figured the 10-digit number of articles written on the topic in 2024 (most by LLMs) was enough.

[zem]

the linked article on combinatory programming is lovely

[crux]

Thank you - I wrote that!

Happy to discuss further if anyone has any thoughts.

[hubraumhugo]

Any good alternatives for "adopt: Blank Spaces app" on Android?

[thcipriani]

Unlauncher[0] looks close (to me, someone who has never used Blank Spaces).

[0]: <https://jkuester.github.io/unlauncher/>

[mamoul]

Check Niagara Launcher: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=bitpit.launche...

[datpiff]

The History of Wordstar is there for the second year in a row :)