Search Results: "spwhitton"

23 July 2020

Sean Whitton: keyboardingupdates

Marks and mark rings in GNU Emacs I recently attempted to answer the question of whether experienced Emacs users should consider partially or fully disabling Transient Mark mode, which is (and should be) the default in modern GNU Emacs. That blog post was meant to be as information-dense as I could make it, but now I d like to describe the experience I have been having after switching to my custom pseudo-Transient Mark mode, which is labelled mitigation #2 in my older post. In summary: I feel like I ve uncovered a whole editing paradigm lying just beneath the surface of the editor I ve already been using for years. That is cool and enjoyable in itself, but I think it s also helped me understand other design decisions about the basics of the Emacs UI better than before in particular, the ideas behind how Emacs chooses where to display buffers, which were very frustrating to me in the past. I am now regularly using relatively obscure commands like C-x 4 C-o. I see it! It all makes sense now! I would encourage everyone who has never used Emacs without Transient Mark mode to try turning it off for a while, either fully or partially, just to see what you can learn. It s fascinating how it can come to seem more convenient and natural to pop the mark just to go back to the end of the current line after fixing up something earlier in the line, even though doing so requires pressing two modified keys instead of just C-e. Eshell I was amused to learn some years ago that someone was trying to make Emacs work as an X11 window manager. I was amazed and impressed to learn, more recently, that the project is still going and a fair number of people are using it. Kudos! I suspect that the basic motivation for such projects is that Emacs is a virtual Lisp machine, and it has a certain way of managing visible windows, and people would like to be able to bring both of those to their X11 window management. However, I am beginning to suspect that the intrinsic properties of Emacs buffers are tightly connected to the ways in which Emacs manages visible windows, and the intrinsic properties of Emacs buffers are at least as fundamental as its status as a virtual Lisp machine. Thus I am not convinced by the idea of trying to use Emacs ways of handling visible windows to handle windows which do not contain Emacs buffers. (but it s certainly nice to learn it s working out for others) The more general point is this. Emacs buffers are as fundamental to Emacs as anything else is, so it seems unlikely to be particularly fruitful to move something typically done outside of Emacs into Emacs, unless that activity fits naturally into an Emacs buffer or buffers. Being suited to run on a virtual Lisp machine is not enough. What could be more suited to an Emacs buffer, however, than a typical Unix command shell session? By this I mean things like running commands which produce text output, and piping this output between commands and into and out of files. Typically the commands one enters are sort of like tiny programs in themselves, even if there are no pipes involved, because you have to spend time determining just what options to pass to achieve what you want. It is great to have all your input and output available as ordinary buffer text, navigable just like all your other Emacs buffers. Full screen text user interfaces, like top(1), are not the sort of thing I have in mind here. These are suited to terminal emulators, and an Emacs buffer makes a poor terminal emulator what you end up with is a sort of terminal emulator emulator. Emacs buffers and terminal emulators are just different things. These sorts of thoughts lead one to Eshell, the Emacs Shell. Quoting from its documentation:
The shell s role is to make [system] functionality accessible to the user in an unformed state. Very roughly, it associates kernel functionality with textual commands, allowing the user to interact with the operating system via linguistic constructs. Process invocation is perhaps the most significant form this takes, using the kernel s fork' andexec functions. Emacs is a user application, but it does make the functionality of the kernel accessible through an interpreted language namely, Lisp. For that reason, there is little preventing Emacs from serving the same role as a modern shell. It too can manipulate the kernel in an unpredetermined way to cause system changes. All it s missing is the shell-ish linguistic model.
Eshell has been working very well for me for the past month or so, for, at least, Debian packaging work, which is very command shell-oriented (think tools like dch(1)). The other respects in which Eshell is tightly integrated with the rest of Emacs are icing on the cake. In particular, Eshell can transparently operate on remote hosts, using TRAMP. So when I need to execute commands on Debian s ftp-master server to process package removal requests, I just cd /ssh:fasolo: in Eshell. Emacs takes care of disconnecting and connecting to the server when needed there is no need to maintain a fragile SSH connection and a shell process (or anything else) running on the remote end. Or I can cd /ssh:athena\ sudo:root@athena: to run commands as root on the webserver hosting this blog, and, again, the text of the session survives on my laptop, and may be continued at my leisure, no matter whether athena reboots, or I shut my laptop and open it up again the next morning. And of course you can easily edit files on the remote host.

Sean Whitton: Kinesis Advantage 2 for heavy Emacs users

A little under two months ago I invested in an expensive ergonomic keyboard, a Kinesis Advantage 2, and set about figuring out how to use it most effectively with Emacs. The default layout for the keyboard is great for strong typists who control their computer mostly with their mouse, but less good for Emacs users, who are strong typists that control their computer mostly with their keyboard. It took me several tries to figure out where to put the ctrl, alt, backspace, delete, return and spacebar keys, and aside from one forum post I ran into, I haven t found anyone online who came up with anything much like what I ve come up with, so I thought I should probably write up a blog post. The mappings Sequences of two modified keys on different halves of the keyboard It is desirable to input sequences like C-x C-o without switching which hand is holding the control key. This requires one-handed chording, but this is trecherous when the modifier keys not under the thumbs, because you might need to press the modified key with the same finger that s holding the modifier! Fortunately, most or all sequences of two keys modified by ctrl or alt/meta, where each of the two modifier keys is typed by a different hand, begin with C-c, C-x or M-g, and the left hand can handle each of these on its own. This leaves the right hand completely free to hit the second modified key while the left hand continues to hold down the modifier. My rebindings for ordinary keyboards I have some rebindings to make Emacs usage more ergonomic on an ordinary keyboard. So far, my Kinesis Advantage setup is close enough to that setup that I m not having difficulty switching back and forth from my laptop keyboard. The main difference is for sequences of two modified keys on different halves of the keyboard which of the two modified keys is easiest to type as a one-handed chord is different on the Kinesis Advantage than on my laptop keyboard. At this point, I m executing these sequences without any special thought, and they re rare enough that I don t think I need to try to determine what would be the most ergonomic way to handle them.

5 June 2020

Sean Whitton: spacecadetrebindings

I ve been less good at taking adequate typing breaks during the lockdown and I ve become concerned about how much chording my left hand does on its own during typical Emacs usage, with caps lock rebound to control, as I ve had it for years. I thought that now was as good a time as any to do something drastic about this. Here are my rebindings: Optional extras: This has the following advantages: The main disadvantage, aside from an adjustment period when I feel that someone has inserted a massive marshmellow between me and my computer, is that Ctrl-Alt combinations are a bit difficult; in Emacs, C-M-SPC is hard to do without. However I think I ve found a decent way to do it (thumb on control, curled ring finger on alt, possibly little finger on shift for Emacs infamous C-M-S-v standard binding).

30 May 2020

Sean Whitton: GNU Emacs' Transient Mark mode

Something I ve found myself doing as the pandemic rolls on is picking out and (re-)reading through sections of the GNU Emacs manual and the GNU Emacs Lisp reference manual. This has got me (too) interested in some of the recent history of Emacs development, and I did some digging into archives of emacs-devel from 2008 (15M mbox) regarding the change to turn Transient Mark mode on by default and set mark-even-if-inactive to true by default in Emacs 23.1. It s not always clear which objections to turning on Transient Mark mode by default take into account the mark-even-if-inactive change. I think that turning on Transient Mark mode along with mark-even-if-inactive is a good default. The question that remains is whether the disadvantages of Transient Mark mode are significant enough that experienced Emacs users should consider altering Emacs default behaviour to mitigate them. Here s one popular blog arguing for some mitigations. How might Transient Mark mode be disadvantageous? The suggestion is that it makes using the mark for navigation rather than for acting on regions less convenient:
  1. setting a mark just so you can jump back to it (i) is a distinct operation you have to think of separately; and (ii) requires two keypresses, C-SPC C-SPC, rather than just one keypress
  2. using exchange-point-and-mark activates the region, so to use it for navigation you need to use either C-u C-x C-x or C-x C-x C-g, neither of which are convenient to type, or else it will be difficult to set regions at the place you ve just jumped to because you ll already have one active.
There are two other disadvantages that people bring up which I am disregarding. The first is that it makes it harder for new users to learn useful ways in which to use the mark when it s deactivated. This happened to me, but it can be mitigated without making any behavioural changes to Emacs. The second is that the visual highlighting of the region can be distracting. So far as I can tell, this is only a problem with exchange-point-and-mark, and it s subsumed by the problem of that command actually activating the region. The rest of the time Emacs automatic deactivation of the region seems sufficient. How might disabling Transient Mark mode be disadvantageous? When Transient Mark mode is on, many commands will do something usefully different when the mark is active. The number of commands in Emacs which work this way is only going to increase now that Transient Mark mode is the default. If you disable Transient Mark mode, then to use those features you need to temporarily activate Transient Mark mode. This can be fiddly and/or require a lot of keypresses, depending on exactly where you want to put the region. Without being able to see the region, it might be harder to know where it is. Indeed, this is one of the main reasons for wanting Transient Mark mode to be the default, to avoid confusing new users. I don t think this is likely to affect experienced Emacs users often, however, and on occasions when more precision is really needed, C-u C-x C-x will make the region visible. So I m not counting this as a disadvantage. How might we mitigate these two sets of disadvantages? Here are the two middle grounds I m considering. Mitigation #1: Transient Mark mode, but hack C-x C-x behaviour 
(defun spw/exchange-point-and-mark (arg)
  "Exchange point and mark, but reactivate mark a bit less often.

Specifically, invert the meaning of ARG in the case where
Transient Mark mode is on but the region is inactive."
  (interactive "P")
  (exchange-point-and-mark
   (if (and transient-mark-mode (not mark-active))
       (not arg)
     arg)))
(global-set-key [remap exchange-point-and-mark] &aposspw/exchange-point-and-mark)
We avoid turning Transient Mark mode off, but mitigate the second of the two disadvantages given above. I can t figure out why it was thought to be a good idea to make C-x C-x reactivate the mark and require C-u C-x C-x to use the action of exchanging point and mark as a means of navigation. There needs to a binding to reactivate the mark, but in roughly ten years of having Transient Mark mode turned on, I ve found that the need to reactivate the mark doesn t come up often, so the shorter and longer bindings seem the wrong way around. Not sure what I m missing here. Mitigation #2: disable Transient Mark mode, but enable it temporarily more often 
(setq transient-mark-mode nil)
(defun spw/remap-mark-command (command &optional map)
  "Remap a mark-* command to temporarily activate Transient Mark mode."
  (let* ((cmd (symbol-name command))
         (fun (intern (concat "spw/" cmd)))
         (doc (concat "Call  "
                      cmd
                      "&apos and temporarily activate Transient Mark mode.")))
    (fset fun  (lambda ()
                 ,doc
                 (interactive)
                 (call-interactively #&apos,command)
                 (activate-mark)))
    (if map
        (define-key map (vector &aposremap command) fun)
      (global-set-key (vector &aposremap command) fun))))
(dolist (command &apos(mark-word
                   mark-sexp
                   mark-paragraph
                   mark-defun
                   mark-page
                   mark-whole-buffer))
  (spw/remap-mark-command command))
(with-eval-after-load &aposorg
  (spw/remap-mark-command &aposorg-mark-element org-mode-map)
  (spw/remap-mark-command &aposorg-mark-subtree org-mode-map))
;; optional
(global-set-key "\M-=" (lambda () (interactive) (activate-mark)))
;; resettle the previous occupant
(global-set-key "\C-cw" &aposcount-words-region)
Here we remove both of the disadvantages of Transient Mark mode given above, and mitigate the main disadvantage of not activating Transient Mark mode by making it more convenient to activate it temporarily. For example, this enables using C-M-SPC C-M-SPC M-( to wrap the following two function arguments in parentheses. And you can hit M-h a few times to mark some blocks of text or code, then operate on them with commands like M-% and C-/ which behave differently when the region is active.1 Comparing these mitigations Both of these mitigations handle the second of the two disadvantages of Transient Mark mode given above. What remains, then, is
  1. under the effects of mitigation #1, how much of a barrier to using marks for navigational purposes is it to have to press C-SPC C-SPC instead of having a single binding, C-SPC, for all manual mark setting2
  2. under the effects of mitigation #2, how much of a barrier to taking advantage of commands which act differently when the region is active is it to have to temporarily enable Transient Mark mode with C-SPC C-SPC, M-= or one of the mark-* commands?
These are unknowns.3 So I m going to have to experiment, I think, to determine which mitigation to use, if either. In particular, I don t know whether it s really significant that setting a mark for navigational purposes and for region marking purposes are distinct operations under mitigation #1. My plan is to start with mitigation #2 because that has the additional advantage of allowing me to confirm or disconfirm my belief that not being able to see where the region is will only rarely get in my way.
  1. The idea of making the mark-* commands activate the mark comes from an emacs-devel post by Stefan Monnier in the archives linked above.
  2. One remaining possibility I m not considering is mitigation #1 plus binding something else to do the same as C-SPC C-SPC. I don t believe there are any easily rebindable keys which are easier to type than typing C-SPC twice. And this does not deal with the two distinct mark-setting operations problem.
  3. Another way to look at this is the question of which of setting a mark for navigational purposes and activating a mark should get C-SPC and which should get C-SPC C-SPC.

3 May 2020

Sean Whitton: Processing mail from discussion lists differently

I realised this week that for some years I have been applying Inbox Zero indiscriminately to all e-mail that I receive, but this does not make sense, and has some downsides. My version of Inbox Zero works very well when applied to mail addressed directly to me, and for mail to certain mailing lists, where each post to the list might as well be addressed directly to me, in addition to the list. However, I also receive by e-mail the following things to which I now believe Inbox Zero should not be applied: I believe that applying Inbox Zero to these sorts of things is not only incorrect but is actually harming my engagement with these mediums. Let us distinguish
  1. processing e-mail this means applying the Inbox Zero decision procedure to incoming messages, at set times during the day (I do it once, around 4pm)
  2. browsing and sometimes catching up RSS articles and list mail looking through unread items, replying if I think I have something useful to say, leaving things for later, and occasionally marking all as read if I ve not had time for that group of lists lately.
These should be kept apart. The easy case to see is why you shouldn t apply the browsing/catching up approach to e-mail which should rather be processed that s just the original wisdom of Inbox Zero. And clearly you don t want ever to have to resort to just marking all mail addressed directly to you as read. What goes wrong, then, if you misapply the processing mentality to e-mail which should, rather, be browsed/caught up? Well, the core of Inbox Zero is deciding whether to read and reply to something right now, add it to your todo list to handle later, or decide the mail cannot be dealt with quickly but is not important enough to go on that todo list. If you apply this to RSS articles and discussion list mail, then the third option is basically ruled out, because almost nothing on mailing lists or on blogs that I follow is important enough to go on my list of Real Tasks. But then you re faced with either reading the article/post right now, or discarding it. There is no option to leave the item marked as unread and then maybe come back to it, or postpone discarding it until you ve decided to catch up the group. Applying Inbox Zero to discussion lists and RSS feeds creates a false sense of urgency. I ve realised that my implicit response to this has been reluctance to subscribe to new mailing lists and feeds, because I don t have things set up to allow me to read them in a leisurely way. But then I m missing out on discussions and writing that might be relevant and beneficial to me if I could only approach them when I m in a frame of mind other than time to get my inbox down to zero . This also means that subscribing to new mailing lists just in order to post something has an unreasonably high cost: introducing all mail on those lists into my Inbox Zero processing window. So, what s needed is to make the virtual folder views which I use to read new mail correspond cleanly to the distinction between mail to be processed and mail to be browsed. I.e. for each virtual folder it should be clear whether mail there is to be processed or to be browsed. Then I can continue to use my processing views once per day, and access the browsing views at leisure. (Indeed, I ve created a keybinding to cycle through the new browsing views, and another to catch them up.) As I mentioned, some list mail ought to be processed. For example, I want to process rather than browse the debian-policy mailing list, as one of the Policy Editors. With notmuch, it s easy to include this mail in the relevant processing views (I ve long had one processing view for weekdays and another for weekends). Additionally, I ve used a bit of Emacs Lisp to create a dynamic uncategorised unread view which catches mail to be browsed which (i) doesn t show up in one of the other virtual folders for mail to be browsed, and (ii) doesn t show up in one of the processing views. So now subscribing to a mailing list is cheap: mail will end up in the uncategorised view, and I can decide whether to leave it there for a low traffic list; create a new virtual folder for the list (trivial as it s all just more Emacs Lisp, no actual moving of files required); or unsubscribe. I ve been experiencing nostalgia for my time in secondary school when my friends and I had all sorts of interesting stuff flowing into our mailstores, from RSS feeds to each other s blogs where we d post both our own content and links elsewhere, RSS feeds to stranger s blogs, and e-mails sent to each other with links. We didn t have to worry about processing anything back then, as our e-mail accounts were used for intellectual enrichment but not the completion of tasks. I think I can recapture something of that with my new virtual folders for browsing.

3 April 2020

Sean Whitton: Manifest to run Debian pre-upload tests on builds.sr.ht

Before uploading stuff to Debian, I build in a clean chroot, and then run piuparts, autopkgtest and lintian. For some of my packages this can take around an hour on my laptop, which is fairly old. Normally I don t mind waiting, but sometimes I want to put my laptop away, and then it would be good for things to be faster. It occurred to me that I could make use of my builds.sr.ht account to run these tests on more powerful hardware. This build manifest seems to work: 
# BEGIN CONFIGURABLE
sources:
  - https://salsa.debian.org/perl-team/modules/packages/libgit-annex-perl.git
environment:
  source: libgit-annex-perl
  quilt:  auto
# END CONFIGURABLE
image: debian/unstable
packages:
  - autopkgtest
  - devscripts
  - dgit
  - lintian
  - piuparts
  - sbuild
tasks:
  - setup:  
      cd $source
      source_version=$(dpkg-parsechangelog -SVersion)
      echo "source_version=$source_version" >>~/.buildenv
      git deborig   origtargz
      sudo sbuild-createchroot --command-prefix=eatmydata --include=eatmydata unstable /srv/chroot/unstable-amd64-sbuild
      sudo sbuild-adduser $USER
  - build:  
      cd $source
      dgit --quilt=$quilt sbuild -d unstable --no-run-lintian
  - lintian:  
      lintian $ source _$ source_version _multi.changes
  - piuparts:  
      sudo piuparts --no-eatmydata --schroot unstable-amd64-sbuild $ source _$ source_version _multi.changes
  - autopkgtest:  
      autopkgtest $ source _$ source_version _multi.changes -- schroot unstable-amd64-sbuild
And here s my script.

23 November 2017

Sean Whitton: Using Propellor to provision your Debian development laptop

sbuild is a tool used by those maintaining packages in Debian, and derived distributions such as Ubuntu. When used correctly, it can catch a lot of categories of bugs before packages are uploaded. It does this by building the package in a clean environment, and then running the package through the Lintian, piuparts, adequate and autopkgtest tools. However, configuring sbuild so that it makes use of all of these tools is cumbersome. In response to this complexity, I wrote a module for the Propellor configuration management system to prepare a system such that a user can just go ahead and run the sbuild(1) command. This module is useful on one s development laptop if you need to reinstall your OS, you don t have to look up the instructions for setting up sbuild again. But it s also useful on throwaway build boxes. I can instruct propellor to provision a new virtual machine to build packages with sbuild, and all the different tools mentioned above will be connected together for me. I just uploaded Propellor version 5.1.0 to Debian unstable. The version overhauls the API and internals of the Sbuild module to take better advantage of Propellor s design. I won t get into those details in this post. What I d like to do is demonstrate how you can set up sbuild on your own machines, using Propellor. Getting started with Propellor apt-get install propellor, and then propellor --init. You ll be offered two setups, options A and B. I suggest starting with option B. If you never use Propellor for anything other than provisioning sbuild, you can stick with option B. If this tutorial makes you want to check out more features of Propellor, you might consider switching to option A and importing your old configuration. Open ~/.propellor/config.hs. You will see something like this: 
-- The hosts propellor knows about.
hosts :: [Host]
hosts =
        [ mybox
        ]
-- An example host.
mybox :: Host
mybox = host "mybox.example.com" $ props
        & osDebian Unstable X86_64
        & Apt.stdSourcesList
        & Apt.unattendedUpgrades
        & Apt.installed ["etckeeper"]
        & Apt.installed ["ssh"]
        & User.hasSomePassword (User "root")
        & File.dirExists "/var/www"
        & Cron.runPropellor (Cron.Times "30 * * * *")
You ll want to customise this so that it reflects your computer. My laptop is called iris, so I might replace the above with this: 
-- The hosts propellor knows about.
hosts :: [Host]
hosts =
        [ iris
        ]
-- My laptop.
iris :: Host
iris = host "iris.silentflame.com" $ props
        & osDebian Testing X86_64
The list of lines beginning with & are the properties of the host iris. Here, I ve removed all properties except the osDebian property, which informs propellor that iris runs Debian testing and has the amd64 architecture. The effect of this is that Propellor will not try to change anything about iris. In this tutorial, we are not going to let Propellor configure anything about iris other than setting up sbuild. (The osDebian property is a pure info property, which means that it tells Propellor information about the host to which other properties might refer, but it doesn t itself change anything about iris.) Telling Propellor to configure sbuild First, add to the import lines at the top of config.hs the lines: 
import qualified Propellor.Property.Sbuild as Sbuild
import qualified Propellor.Property.Schroot as Schroot
to enable use of the Sbuild module. Here is the full config for iris, which I ll go through line-by-line: 
-- The hosts propellor knows about.
hosts :: [Host]
hosts =
        [ iris
        ]
-- My laptop.
iris :: Host
iris = host "iris.silentflame.com" $ props
        & osDebian Testing X86_64
        & Apt.useLocalCacher
        & sidSchrootBuilt
        & Sbuild.usableBy (User "spwhitton")
        & Schroot.overlaysInTmpfs
        & Cron.runPropellor (Cron.Times "30 * * * *")
  where
        sidSchrootBuilt = Sbuild.built Sbuild.UseCcache $ props
                & osDebian Unstable X86_64
                & Sbuild.update  period  Daily
                & Sbuild.useHostProxy iris
Running Propellor to configure your laptop propellor iris.silentflame.com. In this configuration, you don t need to worry about whether the hostname iris.silentflame.com actually resolves to your laptop. However, it must be possible to ssh root@localhost. This should be enough that spwhitton can: 
$ sbuild -A --run-lintian --run-autopkgtest --run-piuparts foo.dsc
Further configuration It is easy to add new schroots; for example, for building backports: 
        ...
        & stretchSchrootBuilt
        ...
  where
        ...
        stretchSchrootBuilt = Sbuild.built Sbuild.UseCcache $ props
                & osDebian (Stable "stretch") X86_64
                & Sbuild.update  period  Daily
                & Sbuild.useHostProxy iris
You can also add additional properties to configure your chroot. Perhaps on your LAN you need sbuild to install packages via https, and you already have an apt cacher available. You can replace the apt-cacher-ng configuration like this: 
  where
        sidSchrootBuilt = Sbuild.built Sbuild.UseCcache $ props
                & osDebian Unstable X86_64
                & Sbuild.update  period  Daily
                & Apt.mirror "https://foo.mirror/debian/"
                & Apt.installed ["apt-transport-https"]
Thanks Thanks to Propellor s author, Joey Hess, for help navigating Propellor s type system while performing the overhaul included in version 5.1.0. Also for a conversation at DebConf17 which enabled this work by clearing some misconceptions of mine.

22 October 2017

Sean Whitton: Debian Policy call for participation -- October 2017

Here s are some of the bugs against the Debian Policy Manual. In particular, there really are quite a few patches needing seconds from DDs. Consensus has been reached and help is needed to write a patch: #759316 Document the use of /etc/default for cron jobs #761219 document versioned Provides #767839 Linking documentation of arch:any package to arch:all #770440 policy should mention systemd timers #773557 Avoid unsafe RPATH/RUNPATH #780725 PATH used for building is not specified #793499 The Installed-Size algorithm is out-of-date #810381 Update wording of 5.6.26 VCS-* fields to recommend encryption #823256 Update maintscript arguments with dpkg >= 1.18.5 #833401 virtual packages: dbus-session-bus, dbus-default-session-bus #835451 Building as root should be discouraged #838777 Policy 11.8.4 for x-window-manager needs update for freedesktop menus #845715 Please document that packages are not allowed to write outside thei #853779 Clarify requirements about update-rc.d and invoke-rc.d usage in mai #874019 Note that the -e argument to x-terminal-emulator works like #874206 allow a trailing comma in package relationship fields Wording proposed, awaiting review from anyone and/or seconds by DDs: #688251 Built-Using description too aggressive #737796 copyright-format: support Files: paragraph with both abbreviated na #756835 Extension of the syntax of the Packages-List field. #786470 [copyright-format] Add an optional License-Grant field #810381 Update wording of 5.6.26 VCS-* fields to recommend encryption #835451 Building as root should be discouraged #845255 Include best practices for packaging database applications #846970 Proposal for a Build-Indep-Architecture: control file field #850729 Documenting special version number suffixes #864615 please update version of posix standard for scripts (section 10.4) #874090 Clarify wording of some passages #874095 copyright-format: Use the synopsis term established in the de Merged for the next release: #683495 perl scripts: #!/usr/bin/perl MUST or SHOULD? #877674 [debian-policy] update links to the pdf and other formats of the do #878523 [PATCH] Spelling fixes

28 September 2017

Sean Whitton: Debian Policy 4.1.1.0 released

I just released Debian Policy version 4.1.1.0. There are only two normative changes, and neither is very important. The main thing is that this upload fixes a lot of packaging bugs that were found since we converted to build with Sphinx. There are still some issues remaining; I hope to submit some patches to the www-team s scripts to fix those.

17 September 2017

Sean Whitton: Debian Policy call for participation -- September 2017

Here s a summary of the bugs against the Debian Policy Manual. Please consider getting involved, whether or not you re an existing contributor. Consensus has been reached and help is needed to write a patch #172436 BROWSER and sensible-browser standardization #273093 document interactions of multiple clashing package diversions #299007 Transitioning perms of /usr/local #314808 Web applications should use /usr/share/package, not /usr/share/doc/ #425523 Describe error unwind when unpacking a package fails #452393 Clarify difference between required and important priorities #476810 Please clarify 12.5, Copyright information #484673 file permissions for files potentially including credential informa #491318 init scripts should support start/stop/restart/force-reload - why #556015 Clarify requirements for linked doc directories #568313 Suggestion: forbid the use of dpkg-statoverride when uid and gid ar #578597 Recommend usage of dpkg-buildflags to initialize CFLAGS and al. #582109 document triggers where appropriate #587991 perl-policy: /etc/perl missing from Module Path #592610 Clarify when Conflicts + Replaces et al are appropriate #613046 please update example in 4.9.1 (debian/rules and DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS) #614807 Please document autobuilder-imposed build-dependency alternative re #628515 recommending verbose build logs #664257 document Architecture name definitions #682347 mark editor virtual package name as obsolete #685506 copyright-format: new Files-Excluded field #685746 debian-policy Consider clarifying the use of recommends #688251 Built-Using description too aggressive #749826 [multiarch] please document the use of Multi-Arch field in debian/c #757760 please document build profiles #759316 Document the use of /etc/default for cron jobs #761219 document versioned Provides #767839 Linking documentation of arch:any package to arch:all #770440 policy should mention systemd timers #773557 Avoid unsafe RPATH/RUNPATH #780725 PATH used for building is not specified #793499 The Installed-Size algorithm is out-of-date #810381 Update wording of 5.6.26 VCS-* fields to recommend encryption #823256 Update maintscript arguments with dpkg >= 1.18.5 #833401 virtual packages: dbus-session-bus, dbus-default-session-bus #835451 Building as root should be discouraged #838777 Policy 11.8.4 for x-window-manager needs update for freedesktop menus #845715 Please document that packages are not allowed to write outside thei #853779 Clarify requirements about update-rc.d and invoke-rc.d usage in mai #874019 Note that the -e argument to x-terminal-emulator works like #874206 allow a trailing comma in package relationship fields Wording proposed, awaiting review from anyone and/or seconds by DDs #515856 remove get-orig-source #542288 Versions for native packages, NMU s, and binary only uploads #582109 document triggers where appropriate #610083 Remove requirement to document upstream source location in debian/c #645696 [copyright-format] clearer definitions and more consistent License: #649530 [copyright-format] clearer definitions and more consistent License: #662998 stripping static libraries #682347 mark editor virtual package name as obsolete #683222 say explicitly that debian/changelog is required in source packages #688251 Built-Using description too aggressive #737796 copyright-format: support Files: paragraph with both abbreviated na #756835 Extension of the syntax of the Packages-List field. #786470 [copyright-format] Add an optional License-Grant field #810381 Update wording of 5.6.26 VCS-* fields to recommend encryption #835451 Building as root should be discouraged #845255 Include best practices for packaging database applications #850729 Documenting special version number suffixes #874090 Clarify wording of some passages #874095 copyright-format: Use the synopsis term established in the de Merged for the next release #661928 recipe for determining shlib package name #679751 please clarify package account and home directory location in policy #683222 say explicitly that debian/changelog is required in source packages #870915 [5.6.30] Testsuite: There are much more defined values #872893 Chapters, sections, appendices and numbering #872895 Include multi-page HTML in package #872896 An html.tar.gz has leaked into the .deb? #872900 Very generic info file name #872950 Too much indirection in info file menus #873819 upgrading-checklist.txt: typo pgpsignurlmangle in section 4.11 of V #874411 missing line breaks in summary of ways maintainers scripts are call

29 August 2017

Sean Whitton: Nourishment

This semester I am taking JPN 530, Haruki Murakami and the Literature of Modern Japan . My department are letting me count it for the Philosophy Ph.D., and in fact my supervisor is joining me for the class. I have no idea what the actual class sessions will be like first one this afternoon and I m anxious about writing a literature term paper. But I already know that my weekends this semester are going to be great because I ll be reading Murakami s novels. What s particularly wonderful about this, and what I wanted to write about, is how nourishing I find reading literary fiction to be. For example, this weekend I read
This was something sure to be crammed full of warm secrets, like an antique clock built when peace filled the world. Potentiality knocks at the door of my heart.
and I was fed for the day. All my perceived needs dropped away; that s all it takes. This stands in stark contrast to reading philosophy, which is almost always draining rather than nourishing even philosophy I really want to read. Especially having to read philosophy at the weekend. (quotation is from On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl on a Beautiful April Morning)

19 August 2017

Sean Whitton: Debian Policy call for participation -- August 2017

At the Debian Policy BoF at DebConf17, Solveig suggested that we could post summaries of recent activity in policy bugs to Planet Debian, as a kind of call for participation. Russ Allbery had written a script to generate such a summary some time ago, but it couldn t handle the usertags the policy team uses to progress bugs through the policy changes process. Today I enhanced the script to handle usertags and I m pleased to be able to post a summary of our bugs. Consensus has been reached and help is needed to write a patch #172436 BROWSER and sensible-browser standardization #273093 document interactions of multiple clashing package diversions #299007 Transitioning perms of /usr/local #314808 Web applications should use /usr/share/package, not /usr/share/doc/ #425523 Describe error unwind when unpacking a package fails #452393 Clarify difference between required and important priorities #476810 Please clarify 12.5, Copyright information #484673 file permissions for files potentially including credential informa #491318 init scripts should support start/stop/restart/force-reload - why #556015 Clarify requirements for linked doc directories #568313 Suggestion: forbid the use of dpkg-statoverride when uid and gid ar #578597 Recommend usage of dpkg-buildflags to initialize CFLAGS and al. #582109 document triggers where appropriate #587279 Clarify restrictions on main to non-free dependencies #587991 perl-policy: /etc/perl missing from Module Path #592610 Clarify when Conflicts + Replaces et al are appropriate #613046 please update example in 4.9.1 (debian/rules and DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS) #614807 Please document autobuilder-imposed build-dependency alternative re #616462 clarify wording of parenthetical in section 2.2.1 #628515 recommending verbose build logs #661928 recipe for determining shlib package name #664257 document Architecture name definitions #682347 mark editor virtual package name as obsolete #683222 say explicitly that debian/changelog is required in source packages #685506 copyright-format: new Files-Excluded field #685746 debian-policy Consider clarifying the use of recommends #688251 Built-Using description too aggressive #757760 please document build profiles #759316 Document the use of /etc/default for cron jobs #761219 document versioned Provides #767839 Linking documentation of arch:any package to arch:all #770440 policy should mention systemd timers #773557 Avoid unsafe RPATH/RUNPATH #780725 PATH used for building is not specified #793499 The Installed-Size algorithm is out-of-date #810381 Update wording of 5.6.26 VCS-* fields to recommend encryption #823256 Update maintscript arguments with dpkg >= 1.18.5 #833401 virtual packages: dbus-session-bus, dbus-default-session-bus #835451 Building as root should be discouraged #838777 Policy 11.8.4 for x-window-manager needs update for freedesktop menus #845715 Please document that packages are not allowed to write outside thei #853779 Clarify requirements about update-rc.d and invoke-rc.d usage in mai Wording proposed, awaiting review from anyone and/or seconds by DDs #542288 Versions for native packages, NMU s, and binary only uploads #582109 document triggers where appropriate #630174 forbid installation into /lib64 #645696 [copyright-format] clearer definitions and more consistent License: #648271 11.8.3 Packages providing a terminal emulator says xterm passes - #649530 [copyright-format] clearer definitions and more consistent License: #662998 stripping static libraries #732445 debian-policy should encourage verification of upstream cryptograph #737796 copyright-format: support Files: paragraph with both abbreviated na #756835 Extension of the syntax of the Packages-List field. #786470 [copyright-format] Add an optional License-Grant field #835451 Building as root should be discouraged #844431 Packages should be reproducible #845255 Include best practices for packaging database applications #850729 Documenting special version number suffixes Merged for the next release #587279 Clarify restrictions on main to non-free dependencies #616462 clarify wording of parenthetical in section 2.2.1 #732445 debian-policy should encourage verification of upstream cryptograph #844431 Packages should be reproducible

18 August 2017

Sean Whitton: The knowledge that one has an unread message is equivalent to a 10 point drop in one's IQ

According to Daniel Pocock s talk at DebConf17 s Open Day, hearing a ping from your messaging or e-mail app or seeing a visual notification of a new unread message has an equivalent effect on your ability to concentrate as This effect is probably at least somewhat mitigated by reading the message, but that is a context switch, and we all know what those do to your concentration. So if you want to get anything done, be sure to turn off notifications.

17 August 2017

Sean Whitton: DebCamp/DebConf17: reports on sprints and BoFs

In addition to my personal reflections on DebCamp/DebConf17, here is a brief summary of the activities that I had a hand in co-ordinating. I won t discuss here many other small items of work and valuable conversations that I had during the two weeks; hopefully the fruits of these will show themselves in my uploads to the archive over the next year. Debian Policy sprint & BoF Debian Emacs Team meeting/sprint Unfortunately we didn t make any significant progress towards converting all addons to use dh_elpa, as the work is not that much fun. Might be worth a more focused sprint next year. Report on team website Git for Debian packaging BoF & follow-up conversations The BoF was far more about dgit than I had wanted; however, I think that this was mostly because people had questions about dgit, rather than any unintended lecturing by me. I believe that several people came away from DebConf thinking that starting to use dgit would improve Debian for themselves and for users of their packages.

Sean Whitton: I went all the way to Montr al for DebConf17, and all I got was a new MUA

This year s group photo (by Aigars Mahinovs). I really like the tagline
On Sunday night I got back from Montr al, where I attended both DebCamp17 and DebConf17. It was a wonderful two weeks. All I really did was work on Debian for roughly eight hours per day, interspersed with getting to know both people I ve been working with since I first began contributing to Debian in late 2015, and people I didn t yet know. But this was all I really needed to be doing. There was no need to engage in distracting myself. I enjoyed the first week more. There were sufficiently few people present that you could know at least all of their faces, and interesting-sounding talks didn t interrupt making progress on one s own work or unblocking other people s work. In the second week it was great to meet people who were only present for the second week, but it felt more like regular Debian, in that I was often waiting on other people or they were waiting on me. While I spent one morning actually writing fresh code, and I did a fair amount of pure packaging work, the majority of my time was poured into (i) Debian Policy; (ii) discussions within the Emacs team; and (iii) discussions about dgit. This was as I expected. During DebConf, it s not that useful to seclude oneself and sufficiently reacquaint oneself with a codebase that one can start producing patches, because that can be done anywhere in the world, without everyone else around. It s far more useful to bring different people together to get projects unblocked. I did some of that for my own work, and also tried to help other people s, including those who weren t able to attend the conference. In my ordinary life, taking a step back from the methods by which I protect my PGP keys and other personal data, I can appear to myself as a paranoid extremist, or some kind of data hoarder. It was comforting to find at DebConf plenty of people who go way further than me: multiple user accounts on their laptop, with separate X servers, for tasks of different security levels; PGP keys on smartcards; refusal to sign my PGP key based on government-issued ID alone; use of Qubes OS. One thing that did surprise me was to find myself in a minority for using the GNOME desktop; I had previously assumed that most people deep in Debian development didn t bother with tiling window managers. Turns out they are enthusiastic to talk about the trade-offs between window managers while riding the subway train back to our accommodation at midnight who knew such people existed? I was pleased to find them. One evening, I received a tag-teamed live tutorial in using i3 s core keybindings, and the next morning GNOME seemed deeply inelegant. The insinuation began, but I was immediately embroiled in inner struggle over the fact that i3 is a very popular tiling window manager, so it wouldn t be very cool if I were to start using it. This difficulty was compounded when I learned that the Haskell team lead still uses xmonad. The struggle continues. I hope that I ve been influenced by the highly non-judgemental and tolerant attitudes of the attendees of the conference. While most people at the conference were pretty ordinary aside from wanting to talk about the details of Debian packaging and processes! there were several people who rather visibly rejected social norms about how to present themselves. Around these people there was nothing of the usual tension. Further, in contrast with my environment as a graduate student, everyone was extremely relaxed about how everyone was spending their time. People drinking beer in the evenings were sitting at tables where other people were continuing to silently work on Debian. It is nice to have my experience in Montr al as a reference to check my own judgemental tendencies. I came away with a lot more than a new MUA: a certainty that I want to try to get to next year s conference; friends; a real life community behind what was hitherto mostly a hobby; a long list of tasks and the belief that I can accomplish them; a list of PGP fingerprints to sign; a new perspective on the arguments that occur on Debian mailing lists; an awareness of the risk of unconsciously manipulating other community members into getting work done. With regard to the MUA, I should say that I did not waste a lot of DebConf time messing with its configuration. I had actually worked out a notmuch configuration some months ago, but couldn t use it because I couldn t figure out how to incorporate my old mail archives into its index. Fortunately notmuch s maintainer is also on the Emacs team he was able to confirm that the crazy solution I d come up with was not likely to break notmuch s operating assumptions, and so I was able to spend about half an hour copying and pasting the configuration and scripts I d previously developed into my homedir, and then start using notmuch for the remainder of the conference. The main reason for wanting to use notmuch was to handle Debian mailing list volume more effectively than I m able to with mutt, so I was very happy to have the opportunity to pester David with newbie questions. Many, many thanks to all the volunteers whose efforts made DebCamp17 and DebConf17 possible.

22 July 2017

Sean Whitton: I'm going to DebCamp17, Montr al, Canada

Here s what I m planning to work on please get in touch if you want to get involved with any of these items. In rough order of priority/likelihood of completion:

5 June 2017

Sean Whitton: skiessequel

Hey Sega, Why the Hell is There No Skies of Arcadia Sequel? USgamer
There was still plenty of world left to be explored, if it came to that
I don t understand this remark there really wasn t much left. They d have to make changes in order to squash more in, as I ve found when trying to convert the world of Arcadia to D&D.

30 May 2017

Sean Whitton: Corbyn and May

Since arriving back in the UK I ve found myself appreciating Sheffield, and indeed British life more generally, far more than I expected, and far more than I have on any previous return, during the time I ve been working and now studying abroad. On Sunday, John Prescott came to give a speech to those of us campaigning for Labour, before we set to work. A heckler came over and shouted at Prescott: how could he vote for Labour with Corbyn in charge? Prescott did not break his stride, shouting something in response to the man and then returning to his speech, and someone went to the man and said, he came here to speak to us, please don t interrupt, come over here and let s talk about Corbyn. And the man did. Real democracy on a street corner, where people are able to fully express themselves without watching their words, or being told they re being uncivil, and without any hint of police or security (note, for those outside the UK reading this post, that John Prescott was the Deputy Prime Minister for 8 years he arrived in a squat people carrier). I think that living in the US had made me believe that this kind of engagement with politics was over. Since I value these battles for ideas so highly, it makes me want to leave Arizona sooner rather than later. In last night s Corbyn vs. May , in which each of the two answered audience questions and were then interviewed by the aggressive Jeremy Paxman May has refused to engage in a head-to-head debate we saw Corbyn at his best. I don t think that there was a clear loser, but there was an opportunity to see that Corbyn is quite capable of oratory. For me, there were two highlights. A small businessman asked Corbyn how he could vote for someone who was raising both corporation tax and the minimum wage. Without showing a grain of disrespect, Corbyn challenged him to reconsider his position on the grounds that we are all better off if everyone is better off. The second highlight was Corbyn s firm response to Paxman going on and on about why abolishing the monarchy was not in the manifesto, while Corbyn is a known republican: we re not going to abolish the monarchy because I m fighting this election for social justice (paraphrased). This is the slightly old-fashioned sense of social justice : truly universal entitlement to health and education, because that is the mark of a civilised nation. What a privilege it is to be able to both campaign and vote for such a man. I ve been thinking about the responses we should make to neo-liberals who say that pouring money into health and education for those who can already afford it results in inefficiency and waste, rendering everyone worse off. There are many such people in the Arizona philosophy department. I do not believe that this economic argument has yet been won by the neo-liberals. A different response, though, is to think about the opportunities for the development of virtue that are lost when we introduce markets. I think that fear is one of the greatest barriers to the development of the virtues. It closes us down. Fundamentally, social justice is about the removal of fear, so that people are able to flourish. The neo-liberals would rather encourage and exploit fear, in all stratas of society (they want themselves to be afraid of being a bit less rich, and respond accordingly).

11 April 2017

Sean Whitton: coffeereddit

Most people I know can handle a single coffee per day, sometimes even forgetting to drink it. I never could understand how they did it. Talking about this with a therapist I realised that the problem isn t necessary the caffeine, it s my low tolerance of less than razor sharp focus. Most people accept they have slumps in their focus and just work through them. binarybear on reddit

3 April 2017

Sean Whitton: A different reason there are so few tenure-track jobs in philosophy

Recently I heard a different reason suggested as to why there are fewer and fewer tenure-track jobs in philosophy. University administrators are taking control of the tenure review process; previously departments made decisions and the administrators rubber-stamped them. The result of this is that it is easier to get tenure. This is because university administrators grant tenure based on quantitively-measurable achievements, rather than a qualitative assessment of the candidate qua philosopher. If a department thought that someone shouldn t get tenure, the administration might turn around and say that they are going to grant it because the candidate has fulfilled such-and-such requirements. Since it is easier to get tenure, hiring someone at the assistant professor level is much riskier for a philosophy department: they have to assume the candidate will get tenure. So the pre-tenure phase is no longer a probationary period. That is being pushed onto post-docs and graduate students. This results in the intellectual maturity of published work going down. There are various assumptions in the above that could be questioned, but what s interesting is that it takes a lot of the blame for the current situation off the shoulders of faculty members (there have been accusations that they are not doing enough). If tenure-track hires are a bigger risk for the quality of the academic philosophers who end up with permanent jobs, it is good that they are averse to that risk.

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